No topic has been more buzzy over the last year than advanced AI such as ChatGPT and Dall-E. Apple’s recent announcement of the launch of Apple Intelligence adds another opportunity for marketers to explore how AI could support better customer experiences. Apple’s devices and user experience have always accelerated shifts in customer behaviors – will Apple Intelligence be another big hit for the brand? In this blog, we explore how Apple Intelligence could provide brands with new ways to serve their consumers.
The Promise
New Apple products will come with next-generation AI tools with several key purposes: first, the integration of ChatGPT allows for customized writing support. Secondly, users can create highly personalized content with GenMoji and Image Playground. Thirdly, Apple Intelligence will be able to perform “Advanced Actions” by accessing data across all applications and developing a greater sense of the user’s context. These advanced actions are provided by an improved version of Siri, which has better voice comprehension and text functionality.
What’s In It For Brands?
Our philosophy is that brands need to make a strong emotional connection with consumers through all their brand touchpoints. We call the first moment a consumer makes that connection with a brand “The Blink Factor.” Many of the new features offered through Apple Intelligence offer great opportunities for brands to capture this moment and then build on that connection. Here are the key opportunities:
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1. Enhanced Customer Interaction through Siri:
Siri’s improved capabilities bring her closer to the vision of a true virtual assistance. By making Siri more responsive to natural language, the virtual assistant can now understand what customers are asking for in a more humanistic way. Marketers can create personalized, voice-activated experiences that integrate with Siri’s advanced contextual understanding providing a whole new way to engage with their customers. The platform can also offer product recommendations at pivotal purchase decision moments, scan through emails and apps for recent promotions, and create guided tutorials that feel more like personal conversations.
2. Utilizing Image Playground for Creative Content:
Apple Intelligence’s Image Playground could become an additional platform to the current set of tools such as Dall-E and Midjourney, allowing marketers to generate images based on descriptions. To create more engagement with consumers, brands can encourage customers to share user-generated images by leveraging this feature in apps or through their social platforms. This content can work in two ways: Creating a heightened sense of belonging as users make branded content their own, while also providing marketers a broad visual context of how their brand is perceived.
3. Turn Images into Movies
We all know video content is king. With the ability to create custom movies by pulling from images on a device, brands can create highly personalized content that resonates with individual customers. We predict Apple’s iMovie will soon offer generative AI, allowing a whole new level of storytelling for marketers. The ease of use and speed of these platforms, many embedded in the social media platform itself, will make it easier to respond to real-time events, allowing brands to jump on a trend instantly. The memory movie function also makes it easier for customers to create user-generated movies for branded contests.
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4. Superpower Your App
Apps are now used by most brands, from financial institutions to retailers and consumer package goods manufacturers. Apple Intelligence’s advanced search capabilities allow users to find specific content through natural language descriptions, across all their applications. Marketers can optimize in-app content to be easily discoverable, tailoring search functionalities to guide users toward relevant products, promotions, or educational materials based on their interactions and preferences. Certain features can be integrated into apps, and if relevant to your brand, can offer customers more reasons to stay connected.
5. Privacy Focus
Security has become a huge issue globally, as many consumers fall prey to scams and have their data exposed through company breaches. Every year, the news highlights another company or government department who were victims of ransomware attacks. Apple Intelligence emphasizes on-device processing and privacy, so brands using the functionality can assure customers that their data is not being compromised. Marketers can build trust by highlighting these privacy features, positioning their use of Apple Intelligence as a secure way to provide personalized, high-value experiences without data risks.
Conclusion
Apple Intelligence, like so many other advanced AI applications, is only at the beta stage today. Although adoption of platforms such as ChatGPT broke all records in reaching a billion users, generative AI is still something consumers are undecided about, with many growing more skeptical. Apple’s approach may engender more trust with users – after all, using AI to create customized emojis is not very scary. Knowing that Apple is not sharing data will alleviate some concerns for customers, while the better user experience may increase adoption of Siri. Brand marketers have an opportunity, today, to leverage Apple Intelligence to create memorable, customized content for or even with consumers, to support emotional connection to their brand community.
