Six Ways AI Can Improve Businesses’ Data Strategies
In a world where every transaction, interaction and communication generates a data point, it’s fair to say that many businesses are creating and managing more data than they know what to do with. Customer data is stored in a database or some other distant location in the hope that it will eventually come in handy, but all too often that one coherent view of a customer is just that: a hope instead of a reality.
At the same time, every brand is working on ways to deliver personalized, meaningful interactions with every customer. There’s a bit of a perception mismatch here — with 81% of brands saying they deeply understand customers, but only 46% of consumers agreeing, according to Twilio’s 2024 State of Customer Engagement report. Pairing the two is at the heart of an effective data strategy — and it’s where incorporating artificial intelligence into that strategy becomes extra powerful. AI can help automate data collection, integration and analysis processes, setting up the workflows that can pave the way to more meaningful customer experiences.
Senior Product Marketing Manager at Twilio.
Taking on the administrative work
The first use case for using AI to help with data strategy is to collect customer data more efficiently. When combined with a customer data platform (CDP), which provides a unified view of the customer with clean, approved, and consistent data, and taps into every data source your business has, AI can serve as a professional organizer of customer data. It can categorize data points, identify correlations, and store them in a way that’s easy to retrieve and use. AI can also make suggestions about how to deploy that data—for example, what types of personalization might be most effective for a particular customer base.
Once that data is collected and organized, it’s time to put it to work—and once again, AI can help. Data teams can use AI to analyze large data sets and adjust their strategies, conducting informed testing and comparisons. From segmenting audiences to triggering tailored campaigns to optimizing messaging and delivery times, AI can help do all of this at scale, freeing teams to focus on bigger-picture strategy instead of wasting time on process.
Unified profiles
A third use case for AI in this world of customer engagement is the creation of golden profiles – an ideal state in which a company has a comprehensive, accurate, and dynamic representation of a customer, which is continually updated as new data and insights are captured within them. 64% of companies surveyed for Twilio’s 2024 State of Customer Engagement said they are already using AI to create a unified view of every customer, which is promising but also shows how much work still needs to be done. This state could be a real game changer for companies looking to make their marketing communications work harder. AI can help integrate data from traditionally siloed locations into one cohesive profile, cleaning up and correcting inconsistencies.
As organizations become more comfortable using AI in their data strategies, it will likely also play a role in maintaining data privacy and compliance. We already see many cybersecurity tools using AI to analyze and triage evolving threats to data security, for example. AI could also make obtaining customer consent easier by analyzing user interactions and offering choices based on those preferences.
Fine-tuning customer journeys as they happen
The rise of fully digital customer experiences has led to the development of customer journey orchestration as a discipline. In larger organizations, there are entire specialized teams dedicated to building and refining the customer journey, so that the brand remains as attractive and easy to interact with as possible.
AI again plays an invaluable role here in providing predictive analytics, delivering predictions of behaviors and preferences so that data teams can adapt customer journeys in real time. The processing power of AI allows marketing campaigns to be continuously analyzed and adapted, ensuring that customer experiences are as relevant and engaging as possible.
Finally, those engaging experiences are no longer based on traditional demographics thanks to AI. Static audience lists and broad segment categories are a thing of the past in a world where AI allows businesses to dynamically segment audiences based on their changing behavior. AI can help businesses create more responsive, targeted, and effective campaigns as new interaction and purchase data comes in.
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