Transforming Content Creation with Generative AI: A Humble Journey in Marketing

By Barry Lowenthal, President, Inuvo

In today’s dynamic world of advertising, the pace of change is relentless. At our AI ad tech company, we’ve embraced this change and the power of artificial intelligence to redefine how we buy programmatic media and uncover invaluable consumer insights. It’s been a transformative journey, one where we’ve humbly recognized that the knowledge transfer within our organization, particularly to our sales teams, was essential for our success.

Our team boasts a multitude of brilliant engineers, well-versed in AI model development. While I came from a background in the agency business, AI was somewhat uncharted territory for me. I was eager to learn and absorb their expertise, but the process proved to be more challenging than I initially anticipated. Conversations with engineers became a labyrinth of technical jargon and concepts that left me feeling disoriented and frustrated. I was determined to bridge the gap, as I understood the importance of grasping their insights.

In reflecting on my own experiences, I couldn’t help but draw a parallel to those who, like college students working part-time, face the challenge of balancing work, education, and personal growth. I remembered my own MBA pursuit and how a tool like America Online transformed my research process, making my time in the library more efficient and enjoyable. This evolution resonated deeply with me, and I realized that AI is now doing something similar for marketing and content creation, enhancing efficiency, creativity, and effectiveness in our field.

To understand and capture the wealth of knowledge held by our engineers, I tried the traditional method of taking notes. However, the fluidity of our conversations made note-taking nearly impossible, as topics ping-ponged unpredictably. It was then that I began recording these interactions using Teams and taking advantage of the transcribe feature.

The turning point came when I integrated Claude.ai, an AI chatbot tool developed by Anthropic,. Claude offered the unique ability to process text files, even in its free version. I uploaded a 60-minute transcript and requested Claude to summarize and categorize the information by theme, which it executed admirably. Further, I asked it to distill these themes into 100-word LinkedIn posts and create a blog post for our website. To my delight, Claude exceeded expectations, even when tasked with producing a 700-word thought leadership article.

Claude.ai has revolutionized our content creation process. The blog posts and LinkedIn content required minimal human intervention, freeing up our team’s time for more strategic endeavors. Though the thought leadership article demanded some tone and vocabulary adjustments, it served as an excellent starting point. What would have typically taken several days now required less than two hours, primarily due to minor refinements in wording.

The pivotal human role was in shaping our conversations with the engineers, knowing what questions to ask, and providing critical thinking and evaluation. Knowledge, complemented by our marketing team’s expertise, became the driving force behind our content creation process, with Claude.ai taking on a more prominent role.

My fascination with generative AI began long before I assumed my current role five months ago. A friend who is a professor at a University was aware of this passion and when I joined an AI company she invited me to teach a class on how AI was revolutionizing marketing. I surveyed the students, all pursuing master’s degrees, and discovered that only a handful had used ChatGPT tools recently. This was concerning, as I strongly believe that everyone should be experimenting with these tools to redefine content development, ideation, and communication.

Our journey has led us to a more efficient, AI-driven approach to marketing content creation, and I firmly believe that this approach will soon become the standard for marketing teams across industries. The transformative power of generative AI is not just an opportunity; it’s an imperative for staying competitive and relevant in the ever-evolving advertising landscape. Our journey has been one of humility, learning, and adaptation, and we look forward to what the future holds as we continue to innovate and embrace the transformative potential of AI.

Tags: AI