By Tom Wozniak, Chief Operating Officer – published on OnlyInfluencers on 6/27/23

Not sure if you’ve heard, but Artificial Intelligence (AI) is kind of a hot topic right now – in literally every industry and even among consumers. If you’ve attended any of our Thursday Only Influencers (OI) Members-only Live Zoom calls this year, you’ve probably noticed that AI comes up on pretty much every call. (Quick plug – if you aren’t attending the weekly OI Live calls, you should! It’s a benefit for members of OI.) It’s probably safe to say that 2023 is going to be known as the ‘Year of AI.’ Probably the first of several years that will make that claim.

As with a lot of buzzwords, AI is getting thrown around a lot. But there’s actually a bit of nuance to the topic that tends to get lost in generic conversations about how AI just suddenly arrived and is already disrupting industries. The thing is a lot of what gets included in the AI bucket isn’t actually particularly new. Just a few years ago, some of the capabilities being credited to AI were known as Machine Learning or part of some automated optimization tools and were readily available to marketers through a variety of marketing platforms.

While the definitions of AI and Machine Learning differ, the line between them in common understanding is fairly blurry, and for practical purposes in terms of marketing, they may often both be relevant. While the long-term goal of AI is to create a ‘machine’ that mimics human intelligence, today it is largely more related to machine learning, which focuses on teaching a machine to perform specific tasks rapidly and more efficiently than a human is likely capable.

So, as we all hop on board the AI bandwagon, it’s useful to realize that there is very much a past, present and future to discuss when it comes to AI and its impact on email marketing.

Read the rest at Onlyinfluencers.

Tom Wozniak is the COO for OPTIZMO Technologies.