Why Artificial Intelligence for Marketers is Table Stakes
[This article was originally published in LinkedIn Pulse]
On Not Charging our Customers for AI
Can we all agree that AI is officially table stakes? Granted I’ve never seen a buzzword go from just that, a buzzword—to full blown hype, to must-have technology, to table stakes—in a matter of months!
And while we could debate, “what is Artificial Intelligence?” let’s just generally call it, “using data and algorithms to make better and faster decisions, so that humans can work smarter.” That accounts for basic machine learning, natural language processing, neural networks, and beyond.
At Uberflip, we spent the better part of a year developing a sophisticated content recommendation engine that leverages external and internally generated data to predict what content a visitor will want to consume next, based on their inferred intent (thanks in large part to our partnership with Bombora), to keep them engaged along their buyer’s journey.
As a SaaS business (or any business really), when you develop something powerful that offers a ton of value, your first instinct is, “how much can we charge for this?” I’ll be honest. That was our first thought as well with Uberflip AI.
We have the tech, the hype is real, and customers are willing to pay for it.
So why not charge for it??!
Well, we sell a product here. AI is not a product. AI is a way to make a product better / faster so that its users can work smarter. That’s it.
In my opinion, there are many “AI products” out in the market right now from AI assistants / bots to “AI-first” applications of other, more established, products that I predict will soon pivot away from calling themselves an AI product. In fact, within a couple of years I suspect we’ll stop mentioning AI altogether. It will be assumed.
Table stakes are table stakes. When every product in #martech, #adtech, #healthtech and #fintech adds AI (and it is something you can add v.s. having to start with), then saying you’re AI-first will lose any competitive advantage it may seem to have today.
As Nvidia's CEO put it ever so elegantly earlier this year, "software is eating the world, but AI is going to eat software."
We’ve added artificial intelligence to Uberflip and bundled it into our enterprise package to add another level of sophistication to our core offering. The value that Uberflip AI provides comes only through its application on top of the platform we’ve built.
It’s a two way advantage. Our premium customers gain access to added sophistication, which inherently makes them happier with us. And at the same time, our AI engine gets better as we’re able to collect and crunch more data.
If you've built an AI-first product, ride the wave, but realize you'll soon need to prove the direct value your product offers decoupled from the hype. And, if by chance, you're still thinking or even planning on adding AI capabilities to your offering, I recommend you move faster. Time to ante up or fold!
As for Uberflip, the introduction of AI is the beginning of a paradigm shift in our organization. Every aspect of our platform will get an AI augmentation over time. Suffice it to say, when it comes to artificial intelligence, we're All In.