• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, October 2, 2024

AI has been hailed as the magic bullet for email personalization. But don’t believe it: AI is sadly lacking in the abilities needed to establish a human connection, according to an opinion piece on the Built In site.  

This may be hard to fathom given the plethora of new — or rebranded — AI tools that are guaranteed to drive personalization.  

But consider these drawbacks, as alleged by Built In: 

While it may know facts and figures with regard to customers, AI doesn’t know them as people. 

• AI automation can lead to inappropriate email sends.  
• AI-generated content often feels fake. 
• This rant calls AI a “creepy party guest.”

Only a very overworked team would allow an AI-written email to go out, unless it was on the most basic notification level. But even there, human writers do a better job.

As the old direct mail Bill Jayme used to say, copy should be person-to-person. 

Of content marketers recently surveyed by Ascend2, 56% see moderate improvement, and 22% significant after using AI. But 22% say their quality has decreased. 

What AI automation is good at is eliminating manual labor. But again, human oversight is required. 

Built In concludes: “Until artificial intelligence can offer a knowing wink or a comforting pat on the back, that responsibility remains firmly in our human hands.”