You'd be hard-pressed to find a business that hasn't mentioned AI in its marketing recently
Some are using it to speed up routine work. Others are building entire services around it. Either way, there’s a lot of pressure to show you’re keeping up, especially when your competitors seem to be talking about it at every opportunity.
But if everyone is using AI, is it still something that makes your business stand out?
Is using AI a selling point?
For some businesses, absolutely. AI might be central to their product or allow them to offer something their customers couldn’t access before.
For others, it’s a useful tool that makes parts of their work quicker.
There’s nothing wrong with either approach, but it’s worth thinking about why your customers should care.
Imagine you’re choosing an accountant. You’d want someone who understands your business and can explain your finances without making your head hurt. If they’re using AI to cut down on admin, great.
Does that mean they have more time to give you useful advice? That’s what you’d actually want to know.
How much you say about AI depends on what you’re using it for. If it’s helping your team organise meeting notes, customers won’t be that interested in the details.
But if it plays a part in work they’re paying for or making decisions from, they’ll likely want to know a little more.
You don’t need to list every tool or explain the technical details. But being open about where AI fits into your process, and where you’ve chosen not to use it, can help build trust.
It also shows customers you’ve given the technology some thought, rather than adopting it because everyone else is.
Where does human expertise fit in?
This is something we’ve been thinking about at Vida, too.
AI plays a part in our processes, as it does for plenty of other businesses. It helps us work more efficiently, but it’s only one part of what we do.
A lot of our work happens before anything is designed, written or built. We spend time understanding the businesses we work with, asking questions and sometimes challenging what they thought they needed in the first place.
AI can help us explore ideas, but deciding which ones are right for a particular business still takes human judgement and creativity.
And the same applies in plenty of other industries. Your expertise is what customers are paying for, even if technology changes how you deliver it.
So, how should you talk about AI?
If AI is changing what you can offer customers, explain how. If it’s helping you work more efficiently, there’s no reason to hide that either.
But you don’t need to make it sound like a defining feature of your business – unless it genuinely is – just because your competitors are doing so.
Think about what customers value about working with you, and make sure that’s coming across in your messaging.
There’s room to talk about the technology you’re using, but there’s plenty worth saying about the people and expertise behind your business, too.
If you’re working out how to communicate what makes your business different, we can help you find the right message.
Get in touch at hello@vidacreative.co.uk