Apple last week confirmed the date of its annual fall showcase, a flashy display where the tech giant prior to now has unveiled its newest products and tech innovations. Slated for Sept. 9, this year’s event is anticipated to introduce consumers to Apple’s latest hardware, including the iPhone 16. Perhaps more notably, the corporate could also share updates on Apple Intelligence, its answer to the continuing wave of excitement surrounding generative artificial intelligence (AI).
The event, announced with the tagline “It’s Glowtime,” follows Apple’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference in June where it first revealed Apple Intelligence, billing it as a private intelligence system for iPhone, iPad and Mac that joins generative AI models with personal context to drive relevancy. The news, supplemented by the reveal of an OpenAI partnership, is a testament to the best way during which the mobile landscape is poised for change as AI strategies graduate from concept to reality.
“I feel everyone was just waiting for [Apple] to get in the sport because there’s such a possibility to achieve so many individuals with the capabilities,” said Nicole Greene, vp and analyst at Gartner. “When you concentrate on the actual premise of gen AI, democratization and accessibility is what’s surging the technology forward.”
The realization of Apple’s AI plans is prone to change the ways consumers engage with the technology — a level of influence the iPhone purveyor isn’t any stranger to possessing, Greene added. Beyond Apple, a number of marketers this year have explored the potential for generative AI, whether for more mundane tasks like generating social copy and boosting commerce experiences or to support mobile-focused campaigns.
“All of our data and research is showing that that is the year of implementation, where businesses are taking this technology very seriously and attempting to determine how it could possibly specifically either solve existing challenges, or move business forward with latest opportunities,” said Greene.
Underneath the thrill, questions remain: What might be expected from the present regulatory environment? How can firms leverage the tech while staying brand protected, and what kind of experiences will already hesitant consumers value?
Social media’s growing potential
Within mobile marketing, social media stays a dominant channel — and one prone to be affected by AI’s rise. Social will account for nearly $242 billion of ad spend this year, per industry forecasts. Accordingly, key platforms like TikTok and Pinterest have sought to maintain up with AI hype in hopes of differentiating themselves. In its latest earnings reports, Meta has provided a gentle drip of updates on its AI capabilities, which it says are improving marketing performance.
For many advertisers, use cases for AI on social media have revolved around tasks like copy generation and ideation, Greene said, while functions like image generation have been less common. Many marketers have tested the tech in small waves and brought a more cautious approach to AI adoption for such tasks, said Jourdan Gariepy, associate vp of optimization and innovation at Kepler. Those tests have tried to take care of a human touch to make sure accuracy, an approach the exec doesn’t expect will change.
“I feel there’s at all times going to be a necessity for the marketing team to ascertain that what we are putting out there may be correct in what we wish those brand guidelines to do,” Gariepy said.
“What we’ve found is, adding these additional changes to the photographs, we’ve seen that favorability has actually improved by a fifth.”
Michael Shaughnessy
Chief operating officer, Kargo
Leveraging AI for social copy versus for images or video — an area during which platforms like TikTok have begun to require disclaimers — also poses challenges in relation to transparency, Greene said, noting that it’s easier to label a picture or video as being created with generative AI than it’s for copy.
AI has moreover proven helpful for creating multiple versions of assets, like changing where a call to motion appears or making tweaks based on locality, to supply a more personalized experience, said Michael Shaughnessy, chief operating officer at Kargo.
“What we’ve found is, adding these additional changes to the photographs, we’ve seen that favorability has actually improved by a fifth, or 20%,” said Shaughnessy.
A number of marketers have used AI to bolster their mobile-focused campaigns, from Sprite to Vitaminwater to Reebok. For Entropico, a world creative company that has worked with brands like Google and Samsung, AI is used most steadily within the pre-production and ideation stages, unless a brand is using the tech for the sake of producing an modern campaign, said Joey Hunter, the corporate’s chief creative officer. The exec emphasized the tech’s limitations in terms of matching the worth of human creation.
“I really like just a little Bob Ross completely happy accident, and you’ll be able to’t get those for those who just run a prompt and it spits something out,” Hunter said.
AI for mobile commerce, apps
Mobile marketers could also find success with AI in boosting their capabilities for mobile commerce, an area during which U.S. retail sales will reach nearly $560 billion this year and account for 44.6% of total U.S. retail ecommerce sales, in accordance with eMarketer. One area where generative AI is taking hold in commerce is for understanding the bridge between product description and the language consumers use to look for that product, Gariepy said.
However, some applications of AI could pose challenges to web experiences. For example, the tech could potentially lower the quantity of traffic going to a brand’s site, reducing the dimensions of its remarketing audience, Gariepy said. Functions like Google’s AI Overview feature, which uses generative AI to supply summaries at the highest of search results, have stoked fears around lowered web traffic.
As AI use grows, Gariepy believes that a stronger focus on the holistic user experience shall be key for understanding goal consumers’ behavior, especially as cross-channel shopping experiences grow to be more prevalent.
Also behind mobile’s ad spend, which is anticipated to cross $200 billion this year, are apps, which can make up 81.9% of spending. While 27% of app marketers rank adopting AI solutions as their top priority for 2024, 25% rank it as their top challenge, in accordance with AppsFlyer.
“Brands still should be really cautious about investment in apps provided that the apps people [already] have will likely grow to be more useful.”
Nicole Greene
Vice president and analyst, Gartner.
Generative AI could provide big opportunities for app marketers, in accordance with Greene, particularly for assisting with the code to supply more personalized experiences and a smoother updating process. Several brands lately have sought partnerships with apps versus making one of their very own, recognizing the problem in obtaining beneficial real estate from consumers on their mobile devices. With AI, there could also be a stronger incentive for brands to create their very own apps.
“All of our research shows it’s really hard to get someone to go away a channel,” Greene said. “So as a brand, in case your goal is to get someone to purchase something, in the event that they can do this seamlessly inside your app enabled by AI, then it is smart to have an app.”
In the identical vein, it’s price noting that existing apps can profit just as greatly from the tech, the exec continued.
“Brands still should be really cautious about investment in apps provided that the apps people [already] have will likely grow to be more useful,” she said.
Regulatory uncertainty fuels hesitancy
While AI has sparked curiosity in mobile marketers, uncertainty surrounds areas like brand safety and regulatory requirements. The E.U. AI Act takes a risk-based approach while executives within the U.S. are steeling themselves for what might be costly safeguards around data privacy and security in relation to AI.
There are also groups just like the Content Authenticity Initiative, a cross-industry community aiming to make content authenticity and transparency accessible and scalable, which have marked a “huge step forward” regarding governance, Greene said. However, in an try to sustain with the tech’s rapid progress, the exec expects some responsibility to be passed off.
“I feel the onus begins to shift toward the brands, where, candidly, regulatory is brands to say, ‘You must guide responsible use, we are able to’t really control this yet because AI is one step ahead,’” Greene said. “We don’t wish to have what happened with social media, where it became the Wild West.”
A number of firms have begun to recommend guidance in hopes of protecting brands of their use of AI. To find out about how the telecommunications sector sees generative AI, global strategy consulting firm Altman Solon recently partnered with Amazon Web Services to survey over 100 senior business leaders at Tier 1 communication service providers (CSPs) across the globe.
“One of the things that got here out pretty loud and clear across all segments of CSPs was that every one telcos felt that they really needed to work on governance,” said Priya Mehra, director at Altman Solon. “The issue around governance, data security and risk related to data has grow to be much more essential during the last year.”
Through its research, Altman Solon created a structure highlighting people, processes and technology that it deems key for implementing generative AI governance. While intended for the telecom industry, the recommendation within the report, which incorporates steps like structuring generative AI governance teams and making a repository for AI models, generally may also apply to marketers broadly, Mehra said.
In addition to brand safety concerns, data security around AI also stays top of mind. Eighty-four percent of marketing chiefs consider AI and machine learning could impact their data security, in accordance with the CMO Council and KPMG.
Generating demand
Unanswered questions also create challenges for the mobile marketing vendors that are pitching brands on various AI capabilities, said Thomas Husson, vp and principal analyst at Forrester, in emailed comments. With AI being such a buzzword, some marketers have began to feel fatigue.
“Most players are still determining which gen AI marketing use cases to scale amongst the numerous they’ve experimented [with], and once they’re ready for it, they’ll want to pick the players which have a very robust AI roadmap and who are in a position to integrate with their broader technology systems,” Husson said.
“One of the things I check with marketers about is, undergo your biggest challenges and opportunities and say, ‘Can gen AI help with that?’ If not, move on to the following on.”
Nicole Greene
Vice president and analyst, Gartner
While the everyday suggestion for marketers can be to go along with what’s customer centric, consumers also aren’t yet aware of the potential capabilities of AI, Greene explained.
“Eighty-two percent of U.S. consumers consider that gen AI is not going to be a profit to society,” Greene said. “Now, how does that intersect with … the proportion of how many individuals have mobile phones?”
For now, the search for productivity is essentially the most resonant amongst marketers, the exec continued. Additionally, while AI might be seen as a technique to offer a more personalized experience to consumers, and in turn help collect beneficial first-party data. Greene stressed that data must be step one within the equation.
“If your data isn’t ready, you’re not ready for AI,” Greene said. “You actually need to have a transparent view of what your customers want so as to higher understand not only their intent, but obviously profile potential customers.”
The exec argued that while AI is a beneficial asset to marketers’ toolkits, the tech “is not going to fix all of the things — it shouldn’t be pixie dust.” As curiosity endures, brands shouldn’t be afraid to research the ways during which AI might help solve their hardships, she continued, as long as in addition they know when to walk away.
“One of the things I check with marketers about is, undergo your biggest challenges and opportunities and say, ‘Can gen AI help with that?’ If not, move on to the following one,” Greene said. “Don’t attempt to force fit it because gen AI is not going to solve all the issues of marketing, but it could possibly do many things.”
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