Artificial intelligence (AI) is helping inform key business strategies among start-ups, small businesses and well-established companies. However, we’re only beginning to scratch the surface of what AI can do – its impact moves beyond merely analysing raw data.
Business leaders need to adopt a new mind and skill set to strategically implement the valuable insights that AI can help extract to remain competitive in this changing business landscape.
A deeper level of analysis
AI is breathing new life into online news and social media monitoring by deepening its analysis of the billions of unstructured external data available beyond a business’s own four walls. All this unstructured data comes from millions of publicly available documents, social media feeds, digital pictures, videos, audio, and content on the web.
With the help of AI, these unstructured data insights outside a business can now be analysed faster and more accurately to inform the strategic direction of a brand. We call this outside insights.
AI adds another deeper level of analysis to media monitoring, allowing business leaders to turn their focus and time towards implementing these insights in more creative and competitive ways.
Those that fail to understand and adopt this new mindset towards media monitoring will risk falling behind their competitors or wasting their time on menial tasks that deter them away from their more important business goals.
The future for businesses
Think about every Facebook comment, Tweet, or review left online. Customers are leaving behind valuable breadcrumbs that reveal their needs and wants – information, that if analysed properly, can help businesses better understand their customers and inform decisions. The challenge with this is distilling the recurring patterns and insights from the billions of conversations, noise and social chatter occurring each day. With the help of AI, this becomes easier.
We used our AI capabilities to conduct an analysis of one of the most popular car review sites to get a better understanding of what customers are saying about three different car brands compared to its competitors. With over 23,115 customer comments available for just one brand on the website, what would have once been a manual and time consuming task to monitor all negative and positive feedback in order to understand what customers want, has now become faster and more efficient with the help of AI analysis.
The traditional methods of customer experiences have evolved. Consumers today expect brands to respond in real-time, which means it needs to analyse, extract and understand the conversations and digital breadcrumbs that are happening outside a company’s four walls as it happens. With the power of AI, this is now easier than ever – allowing business leaders to better understand and meet its customers’ needs quicker than ever.
The way forward
Outside insight combined with AI enables decision-makers to observe more competitive insights in less time. It has the ability to predict a competitor’s next move based on digital breadcrumbs like job listings, product launches, changes in leadership, patent filings and ad spend.
It’s these breadcrumbs that brands should be monitoring to stay ahead and help shape their strategic business decisions. The first movers that take advantage of these breadcrumbs will continue to propel forward and lead the charge.
David Hickey, Director of Strategy, Meltwater
