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What is AI in Digital Marketing?

Artificial intelligence in digital marketing uses the capabilities of the technology such as data collection, natural language processing, machine learning, and analytics to drive better business insights, and automate marketing tasks and decisions. 

The advantage of AI is that it will help you gain insights into customer behaviors at speed by harvesting vast amounts of data. 

These can be used to respond to and tailor a customer’s needs depending on their actions and preferences. AI is also able to adapt and improve over time using feedback and new data.

Artificial intelligence offers great opportunities for marketers to be more effective and personalized. This means customers get relevant content that can be triggered by actions on a site, an ad, or a branded message.   

But AI doesn’t replace the roles and efforts of humans! It is a technology that complements and enhances those but it requires human skills to use it effectively.  

“There's still a huge need for human writers for human creativity, for human thought and strategy and to come to these models with our own objectives and our own ideas,” said Kerry Harrison, AI educator and copywriter on a DMI podcast. 

At a senior level, the McKinsey Global Survey on AI finds that organizations are taking steps that drive bottom-line impact such as redesigning workflows as they use generative AI and put senior leaders in critical roles, such as overseeing AI governance. They are also working to mitigate any gen-AI-related risks and hiring for new AI-related roles while retraining employees to deploy AI. 

AI Digital Marketing Tools

While ChatGPT may be the most talked-about generative AI tool, there are so many more out there that are helping marketers in their daily roles. 

They can help marketers in a variety of functions from content generation to automation to SEO and design. 

Here are some of the best AI tools out there: 

• Writer - A highly-rated content generation tool that can repurpose content and includes an AI writing assistant 
• Midjourney - Generative AI that can convert natural language prompts into images
• Optimove - A customer data platform with AI-based marketing functions
• Zapier - Helps automate workflows by connecting apps and services that your company uses
• Manychat - Provides an interactive customer experience using NLP to respond to customers on social platforms including WhatsApp
• Evolv.ai - Uses AI and machine learning algorithms to improve customer experiences in real-time
• Surfer SEO - A cloud-based on-page optimization tool that analyzes and compares your pages against what currently ranks on the SERPs
• Mailchimp - Uses AI to optimize email campaigns by predicting the best send times and personalizing content
• Perplexity - Similar to ChatGPT but more suitable for research as it uses web citations in a clearer way
• Drift - An AI chatbot that enhances lead generation and customer interaction
• Buffer - Responsible for social media management, offering post scheduling, analytics, and content curation
• Tableau - An AI-powered data visualization and intelligence tool that helps marketers analyze data and extract actionable insights

Examples of AI in Digital Marketing

The power of AI means it can be leveraged across many digital channels. Companies use it for social media campaigns, to automate tasks and processes, and for digital advertising.

Have a look at our 10 eye-opening AI marketing stats in 2025 blog to see how the technology is being leveraged to deliver results. 

It can also be used in any industry. Beauty brands use it to deliver a tailored customer experience such as Sephora’s AI chatbot-powered shopping service and its Virtual Artist App.

Using AI and digital innovations, Sephora’s e-commerce sales grew from $580 million in 2016 to over $3 billion according to Statista. In 2024, the online beauty store is forecast to generate around $3.6 billion in sales.   

One of the most successful and well-known for using AI effectively is streaming giant Netflix. The streaming service uses the technology to provide personalized recommendations based on user preferences and behavior. 

These choices are based on thousands of data points (included in the screenshot below) such as:

• User profile information (e.g age, gender, location)
• Type of device used to stream
• Watch patterns (whether a show was paused, rewound, fast-forwarded)
• Whether an entire movie or TV series was completed
• Browsing history

By using these data points Netflix improves content recommendations, reduces churn rate, and boosts return on investment.

How to Use AI in Digital Marketing

As AI technologies have become more accessible and easier to use, companies have started to use them in daily tasks such as creating content for pay-per-click (PPC) ads or setting up triggered email workflows.  

When we asked our membership community at the Digital Marketing Institute about AI, 60% believe they are familiar with the technology and its applications in marketing but 37% don’t currently have an AI strategy in their business. 

But what's the impact of AI on marketers and what are they using it for?

1. Content and image creation

Marketing teams are often under pressure to create content quickly for many purposes and channels. However, creating good content takes time and effort, and a lot of marketers are time- and resource-poor. 

AI copywriting tools such as ChatGPT and Claude have exploded because they help people to generate content: that’s why they’re called generative AI tools!  This could be email subject lines, ad copy, landing pages, blogs, or anything else you need for your content marketing. 

You can also use AI writing prompts to create catchy headlines and customize content for your audience which drives personalization and use AI to boost your influencer marketing campaigns and manage your relationships. 

Using these tools saves time and money. However, make sure to read over any content before publishing it live to ensure it has personality and fits in with your brand voice. 

"People use AI because it's lower cost and highly scalable. But if you don't have a good creative platform and it doesn't come from creative and data-driven insights, then it's just spray and pray really,” says Mischa McInerney, CMO at the Digital Marketing Institute   

Join for FREE to access this video.

2. Customer service and support

AI-driven chatbots have been around for a while as a way to communicate with and provide information to customers. When people want to get instant answers to simple queries or interact with a brand, they first go to a chatbot. 

However, AI has a bigger role when it comes to customers. It can improve customer experience by personalizing content and messaging, anticipating customer needs, streamlining purchasing, and directing queries or concerns to the right department or agent.

3. Customer segmentation

Customer segmentation and targeting help you identify and influence your most valuable customers. However, doing this manually can be time-consuming and costly.  

AI can use algorithms to segment your prospects and customers into groups or segments of people with similar interests, needs, or behaviors. 

You can then communicate with and target these segments with relevant and customized messaging that can be adapted and adjusted in real time. 

Recommendation systems can suggest products, services, or offers that match customer preferences while Natural Language Processing (NLP) can analyze customer feedback and reviews to improve your products, services, or customer experience.

4. SEO

Artificial intelligence has huge potential in the area of search engine optimization (SEO). Search engines such as Google have been using sophisticated algorithms that crawl and index web pages to rank them. 

Now, AI is becoming further integrated with that process in a way that is changing the world of search even more, through AI Overviews (previously known as Search Generative Experience (SGE) 

AI can automate and improve keyword research and content optimization by analyzing user behavior, along with creating meta tags and headings. Marketers can also use it to predict SEO trends, user behavior, and algorithm updates through predictive SEO.  

Voice and visual search are becoming more important ways for people to find information, and AI can help optimize both. This can be done by focusing on NLP and long-tail keywords and including relevant metadata on images.

Pro tip: Read more about what AI Overviews mean for Search

5. Pay-Per-Click advertising

Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is a form of advertising where you pay when someone clicks your ad. As a strategy, PPC marketing is important as it can attract new customers through targeted campaigns, get quick results, and be easily tweaked and optimized. 

AI can be used to enhance your PPC campaigns by optimizing:

• Keyword research
• Bidding and targeting
• Ad creation
• Ad scheduling and placement
• Predictive analysis
• Fraud detection

As the technology continues to evolve, marketers can see new ad formats, targeting techniques, and measurement tools for PPC. This is why it’s so important to keep an eye on developments and stay up to date. 

6. Data analytics

With so much data available from a wide variety of channels, marketers can often feel overwhelmed. However, artificial intelligence can process vast volumes of data at speed. This can help marketers gain insights from data, along with using historical data to predict trends and behaviors. 

AI can also be used to detect anomalies in data and uncover patterns. The combination of AI and data analysis can help drive hyper-personalization. The better you know your customers, the more targeted you can be in your messaging and approach. In retail, for example, it can be used to manage inventory and optimize customer service.

ChatGPT has excellent data analysis capabilities, especially if you use its Advanced Data Analysis plugin. This enables you to feed a spreadsheet to ChatGPT, and it then helps you to unearth deep insights above the data in your spreadsheet.

Ultimately it’s about using AI technology in data analysis to drive better business insights in a way that works for you.

7. Email marketing

Email marketing is an important part of any marketing strategy as it continues to be an effective way to convert prospects and engage customers. Using AI tools in your email marketing can save you time and improve performance.

By using AI in emails, you can:

• Analyze email performance to identify how to optimize your email strategies (e.g. high-performing subject lines)
• Create triggered workflows driven by user actions
• Conduct campaign and workflow analysis
• Craft copy tailored to your audience
• Personalize content to audience segments 
• Enable dynamic content
• Perform A/B testing