As AI agents become more sophisticated and digital twins evolve, marketers have even more to gain from the emerging technology.
But these new implementations for AI increase the importance of guardrails and human oversight.
“Automation excels at repetitive tasks and data processing, but it requires human input for creativity, empathy and context,” said Jim Jansen, chief revenue officer at Qloo, in our “Meet the Analyst” webinar.
Here are three considerations for marketers when approaching AI and tech in 2025.
Accounting for hallucinations
Concerns about the reliability of AI, which include hallucinations, are the most common AI concern among worldwide brand marketers, according to an October 2024 Econsultancy survey.
Eighty percent of brands are concerned about how agency partners are using AI on their behalf, according to the World Federation of Advertisers. Bourne said this worry highlights the importance of communication when implementing these technologies. The solution, he said, is coming up with safeguards to mitigate risks.
“There should be some type of incident log that’s shared between companies when things do go wrong with AI,” said Bourne. “Then there is not only transparency that something happened, but there are also steps taken to mitigate it from recurring.”
Pairing AI and digital twins
Marketers are planning to power digital twins with AI to run more sophisticated simulations and test personalization strategies, said Bourne.
This integration means AI agents can offer value to marketers beyond time-saving productivity, he said. A national food retailer saw a 20% increase in overall campaign effectiveness after implementing digital twin technology to simulate customer behavior, according to Harvard Business Review.
“[AI agents] will not only make data-driven recommendations, but actually take action on those recommendations, all autonomously in the background,” said Bourne.
Optimizing content for AI and human audiences
With AI agents increasingly deployed to search the web, Bourne said marketers must create content with the understanding that it will be ingested by both humans and AI.
“AI agents are now players in the marketplace,” said Bourne. “They're making decisions, they're consuming content, and they're the audience now. So you really need to optimize your strategy for the AI agents, but also continue to optimize for humans as well.”
Adjusting to this shifting landscape, Bourne said marketers must invest in software integrations and upskilling their teams with the right training.
While marketers navigate new AI capabilities, Jansen stressed they should be using it to “enhance decision making, not replace human connection.”
This was originally featured in the EMARKETER Daily newsletter. For more marketing insights, statistics, and trends, subscribe here.