That's a freaky image, isn't it? I'm not a designer and couldn't do that in Photoshop.
Of course, I didn't need to. It took me about 3 minutes to Google "turn face into a robot", click a link and generate it.
There's been an explosion of tools to allow anyone to generate almost any kind of media. And we're getting closer to the point where you can generate half decent marketing materials.
I'm already aware of some MSPs using Jasper to create original blog posts for their websites.
And ChatGPT is something we've all played with in the last few weeks, right?
It's not perfect. But if I made my living as a writer knocking out commodity content on Fiverr, I'd be looking to broaden my skillset in 2023. The robots can write as naturally as the humans can. And it's only going to get better and better.
It's not just text. Look at this:
Again, not perfect. She doesn't pass the "uncanny valley" test that tells us a human face is fake.
But what's she going to look like in 2025. Or 2035 for that matter.
That Synthesia service (and probably others) allow you upload footage and audio of yourself, to create your own avatar. This guy used ChatGPT, Synthesia and other services to created a completely AI-generated video - featuring a fake version of himself.
Side note: I'm kinda tempted to create a "Fake Paul" avatar and use it to create thousands of short instructional videos for my MSP Marketing Edge members.
We already have 350 articles and real person videos in our members-only Knowledge Base. But this would allow me and my team to auto generate a video to answer every single How To question we are asked about MSP marketing.
Some people prefer reading a text answer; others prefer watching a short video. This way we could keep both happy. And I'd make sure the avatar introduced himself as "Fake Paul" in each video. The AI's not good enough to hide it yet, so best keep it out in the open.
Back to the core question - what's the role of AI in MSP marketing?
Here's my guess at how this is going to affect MSP marketing on a practical level.
- AI will quickly lead to another explosion in content creation. It'll be 100x or 1,000x or 10,000x the explosion in content we're currently experiencing
- Just as is happening now, people and tools (i.e. Google) will quickly be overwhelmed by the sheer amount of content. So they will adapt to look for the very best and most useful content.
- In fact, this explosion increases opportunities for quality over quantity. I've long been a fan of the They Ask You Answer approach to content marketing. The details will change, but the core strategy will remain the same (quality engagement and education)
- I believe humans may demand AI-generated content is watermarked - especially faked video. Or a new battle might start between tools trying to identify content as AI-generated, as the AI-generated content improves
- Many MSPs will churn out cheap and meaningless content, just because they can. Yet they won't see a return on investment, because "everyone" is doing the same thing. And churning out content for the sake of it has rarely generated new clients. You need to do it to support a smart MSP marketing strategy
