Six months ago, I joined  diploma programme in digital marketing. The sole purpose – to pick up skills that can come handy to sell my books. Now, almost at the end of the course, and a tonne of assignments later, I have developed an inferiority complex against AI. Each time I am tasked to create something – an ad, an email campaign, a customer journey for an assignment, AI seems to understand the question far better than I do. It works at speeds I can never hope to attain. And it gets the essence of my upcoming book with just a line of feeding in the genre, the title and the main character traits. I am amazed to say the least. But it also feels like a threat. It also makes me wonder if I have stretched my imagination far enough. AI seems to be far too knowledgeable to beat.

I also tried experimenting with a few things:

I asked AI to scan my blog and asked it to write a on a particular topic in my style. I have to admit, AI is a refined imposter. However, as humans, we still have an upper hand when it comes to creative depth. We don’t always think in extremely structured ways as machines do. And we can add convoluted conclusions to our write-ups. But is this advantage here to stay for long? Only time can tell. But for now,  AI is a handy tool for marketing, communication and analysis. But as a writer, AI seems to be giving me a run for my money.

It raises the following questions.

1. How many people ask AI for a basic draft and plot before they start writing? It can certainly shorten the time needed for the first draft.
2. Is AI helping with the creative process or marring it? I think it depends. Whether you think of a plot and ask AI for suggestions and improvise or act pure lazy and ask it to do all the thinking.
3. Is it moral to ask AI for help when creating something original like a story or a book or even music? What about voice overs? Where are we on plagiarism?
4. Are movies going to be made without real actors, voice overs and music in the near future?
5. What about students pursuing a Bachelors in Marketing? If a degree takes about three years on an average, wouldn’t they have a lot to catch up on in terms of skills because technology is changing every year?
6. What about all those who are losing their jobs to AI? What are they going to do? After manufacturing, it was the IT boom followed by the internet. And now we are already living the biggest transformation in the history of mankind – AI.

I do not have an answer to every question. I only have some thoughts. On a positive note, I now have a smart helper when it comes to working in areas that I don’t excel in – advertising and marketing. It also saves me some time and money that I can use to spread the word around and drive sales. I can go agile with my marketing campaign because the changes to the marketing plan can be tweaked with AI.

P.S. Re-exploring the world of advertising and marketing with the help of AI has been exciting. It is an eye opener how fast the world is moving and the plethora of possibilities in different occupations. But when it comes to anything creative, be it music, art, dance, drama, literature, I believe, people are still hungry for something groundbreaking by the human race. For how long, we will live to find out.