For me, storytelling is pure alchemy. It has been a powerful medium of human expression for millennia, imparting meaning and passing down wisdom and knowledge.

Storytelling has played a vital role in human evolution. It facilitated the transmission of critical information needed for survival, such as food sources, water locations, and dangers like predators and illnesses. Humans are social animals, and through time stories have fostered social cohesion and helped communities navigate complex relationships.

Likely because of these compelling benefits, humans are wired to engage with stories. Listening to a story activates not only the language-processing parts of the brain but also regions associated with experiencing—so you don’t just hear, read or see it, you feel it. Chemicals like cortisol, dopamine and oxytocin are released during storytelling, influencing memory retention, emotional engagement and empathy. These elements make storytelling a profoundly impactful form of communication.

Generative AI, driven by large language models (LLMs), can produce stories. But AI storytelling requires significant human input. Users must guide AI through initial prompts and refine its outputs.

AI lacks human curiosity. It cannot explore or grasp nuanced contexts beyond its training data. It wants for emotional intelligence and the ability to feel emotions like heartbreak, joy or fear. Its decisions may be ethically questionable without human oversight. AI cannot draw from authentic lived experiences or convey the intricate emotions behind spoken words.

Enter some pretty high-profile AI–generated brand fails.

So why bother with generative AI at all?

Should we dispense with the use of AI in storytelling completely? Humans need to do so much of the legwork anyway. Germinating the idea and developing the perfect prompts. Checking what pops out and refining, changing, tweaking. Why not cut out the middleman or, rather, the machine?

Besides, aren’t marketing outfits supposed to be framing brands in a more authentic and human way nowadays? Doesn’t it seem perverse to turn to machines to tell stories that will make brands seem more…erm…human?

It pains me to say it, but it seems the jury is still out on this question.

According to a survey of 700 US consumers, humans consistently preferred AI-generated outputs over human content. This was not specifically in the form of stories, but the figures are compelling.

Humans and AI were set tasks. One was to write an introduction for a blog post about the best cat food for indoor cats. AI won 54% to 46%.

In the other five contests, AI trounced humans at writing social media ads (70% to 30% and 54% to 47%), writing a blog post paragraph (60% to 40%), writing a social media post (65% to 35%) and writing a product description (65% to 35%).

Semrush, who commissioned the survey, said in the report: ‘These results show that AI-written content can be effective and resonate with your customers. If you prompt your AI tools well enough, you can create engaging and high-quality marketing copy.’ But added, ‘However, our experiment does not suggest that AI is enough for content writing.’

Humans apparently even prefer AI-generated poetry according to a study from the University of Pittsburgh. Though the caveat here is that the readers taking part in the study were non-expert poetry readers. The authors say: ‘because AI-generated poems do not have such complexity, they are better at unambiguously communicating an image, a mood, an emotion, or a theme to non-expert readers of poetry.’

However, the ‘complexity and opacity’ of human-written poetry is, for experts at least, the main appeal. The results would have been quite different if the participants had been poetry buffs.

AI can serve as a powerful tool, particularly in areas such as content marketing. It can make storytelling more accessible, personalised and scalable to the general consumer.

However, an AI-generated novel is unlikely to win the Pulitzer Prize any time soon. Stories crafted from genuine human emotion and experience will continue to resonate most deeply.

Until, that is, Blade Runner-style replicants start exhibiting human emotions and empathy. But that’s another story…

Welcome to the podcast blog for B2B decision-makers. We’ll dive deep into the podcast world and bring you insider secrets on how podcasts can boost business and elevate your brand. Get expert tips on podcast strategies, right here, right now. Let’s kickstart this blog with your host, sorry…writer, Laura Ansdell.

From niche entertainment to a mainstream media channel, podcasts have become a powerful tool in the B2B marketing mix. Edison Research revealed in April 2024 that over one-third (34%) of the U.S. population say they have listened to a podcast in the past week—up from 31% in 2023. That means an estimated 98 million people in the U.S. alone now listen to podcasts weekly.

Furthermore, 55% of business owners and founders are listening to podcasts daily. One only needs to look at some of the popular business podcasts to get a sense of the eye-watering numbers. The Tim Ferriss Show, for example, has surpassed one billion downloads.

Elevated engagement

Podcasts build deeper engagement than many other content forms. A BBC report found that branded podcasts achieve an elevated state of engagement for brand mentions. This also drives brand metrics across the board, helping to boost awareness (89%), brand consideration (57%), brand favourability (24%) and purchase intent (14%).

The focus on voice, I mean that literally, in most podcasts may explain their emotional impact. A 2017 study from Yale University found that voice-only communication elicits greater empathy than visual communication.

Brand voice can also be amplified through the podcast medium. People tend to trust individuals more than companies, and podcasts allow brands to convey their human side. Through authentic storytelling, brands can share their origins, challenges, and successes in a relatable way. This storytelling approach resonates with listeners, creating emotional connections that influence purchasing decisions.

Spotify’s 2024 Podcast Trends Tour found that 52% of creators feel they can be more authentic on Spotify than on social media platforms. Meanwhile, 63% of listeners trust their favourite podcast hosts more than social media influencers. This trust provides fertile ground for brands to deepen relationships with their audiences.

Networking and community building

Podcasts are a powerful networking tool. They provide opportunities to connect with high-level decision-makers, existing clients and potential leads. Hosting experts or industry leaders as guests can cultivate relationships and open doors to collaborations or partnerships. These meaningful conversations benefit both the host and the audience. Listeners gain industry insights, while brands solidify their position as thought leaders. This dual benefit strengthens connections and expands a brand’s influence within its niche.

Showcasing thought leadership

For B2B marketers, thought leadership is critical—The Superpowers Index, a 2024 study into B2B buying behaviour, found that thought leadership is now the third most important decision driver for B2B buyers, up from twentieth last year. Podcasts are an excellent channel for thought leadership in B2B contexts.  According to Edison Research, 74% of podcast users listen to learn new things. This makes podcasts an ideal medium for experts to share their knowledge with an eager audience and build credibility among prospective clients.

Humanising the brand

Brand podcasts can amplify voices within a company. Team members can share their expertise highlighting their contributions and nurturing a positive company culture. Listeners appreciate hearing from the people behind the brand, which humanises the organisation and builds relatability. Podcasts can also be a platform for celebrating diversity and inclusion, allowing employees to share their unique experiences. This approach motivates the workforce and strengthens the brand’s image as an inclusive and forward-thinking organisation.

Convincing ROI

Producing podcasts is relatively cost-effective compared to other marketing channels and each episode can be repurposed across platforms. For example, audio transcripts can provide a source of content for blogs or articles. Soundbites or quotes can increase visibility in social media. And repurposed content with targeted keywords can boost search rankings. Podcasts can include clear calls-to-action (CTAs) to drive engagement, such as encouraging listeners to subscribe to a newsletter, follow the brand on social media or leave a review.

The power of podcasts for B2B

For businesses looking to stand out in today’s competitive landscape, podcasts offer a unique blend of authenticity, engagement and ROI. Whether you’re starting conversations with industry leaders or building trust with prospective clients, podcasts are a compelling way to elevate your brand, nurture relationships and support long-term growth. In short, podcasts are no longer just an option—they’re a must-have in the B2B marketing toolkit.

What do the colour of Google’s toolbar, Obama’s 2008 Presidential campaign and Airbnb’s referral programme have in common? They are all examples of marketing experimentation success – and generative AI is proving to be an innovation game-changer. 

Recent research from digital experience platform provider, Optimizely, ‘Tested to Perfection’ found 75% of marketers believe experimentation is essential to strategic business decision- making. The rapid rise of AI offers marketers immense opportunities to experiment and deepen customer connections through enhanced personalisation.

Marketing experimentation is a systematic approach to testing and optimising marketing strategies, tactics, and initiatives. It involves creating controlled conditions to evaluate the effectiveness of marketing actions such as different advertisements, pricing strategies, promotional offers or content. 

The goal is to gather data and insights that inform better decision-making which leads to improved marketing performance. It helps identify the most effective marketing tactics and optimise campaigns for better results through empirical evidence rather than guesswork. It allows testing on a smaller scale before full-scale implementation, thereby reducing risk of costly mistakes. In essence, experimentation is a fundamental practice for enhancing marketing effectiveness and aligning with customer needs and preferences.

Some examples that highlight the power of experimentation include Google’s 41 Shades of Blue. One of Google’s most famous experiments involved testing 41 different shades of blue for its toolbar and ad links. The goal was to find the shade that maximised user engagement and click-through rates. This extensive A/B testing experiment led to a significant increase in ad revenue, demonstrating the value of detailed and data-driven experimentation.

Obama’s 2008 Presidential campaign was a marketing triumph. During the campaign, his team A/B tested extensively on their website to optimise sign-up forms and donations. One experiment tested different versions of a signup button and a hero image. By testing combinations, they identified the best elements, significantly increasing conversions and donations. This data-driven approach was crucial in mobilising campaign support and funding.

AI supercharges marketing innovation 

Generative AI can create vast amounts of content quickly and efficiently, including ad copy, blog posts, images and even videos. Recent joint research from Google and Bain identified what differentiates high-growth B2B software businesses from their peers. Companies are reporting new gains from adopting AI, with respondents reporting a 15% improvement in KPIs after implementing AI.

AI analyses large datasets to understand consumer preferences and behaviour patterns and generate individually personalised content and tailored offers. This level of personalisation enhances marketing effectiveness by ensuring that messages resonate with target micro audiences. 

Traditional A/B testing is limited, often testing one or two variables at a time. Generative AI can manage multivariate testing, simultaneously testing numerous variables and combinations to identify the most effective elements in a campaign. AI-driven tools reduce the time and resources needed for experimentation. They can automate repetitive tasks such as data collection, analysis and reporting, freeing up marketers to focus on strategy and creativity.

AI algorithms predict outcomes based on historical data, allowing marketers to anticipate the results of experiments before they are run. This predictive capability helps prioritise experiments and focus on the most promising strategies. It enables real-time data analysis and decision-making, allowing marketers to refine campaigns on-the-fly. This agility is particularly valuable in digital advertising, where factors can change rapidly.

Oracle, spotlighted in the Google/ Bain research, is an example of best-in-class marketing experimentation. It has dedicated funding to encourage experimentation and fields innovation teams to accelerate and scale up experiments. The company ran an experiment with an AI-enabled virtual assistant tool that handles communications with customers and provides conversion-ready prospects to sales teams. Even with a few employees dedicated to the project and minimal funding, the AI engine delivered substantial value, putting $140 into the sales pipeline for every $1 invested and increasing conversions fourfold. The company then expanded the team and funding to scale up the tool.

The integration of generative AI into marketing experimentation offers transformative potential. It enhances the ability to test, learn and optimise quickly, leading to effective and efficient marketing strategies. As technology evolves, it will undoubtedly play a central role in how businesses engage with and understand their audiences.

Further reading: https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/intl/en-apac/future-of-marketing/management-and-culture/marketing-experiment-playbook/

The rise of AI needs no introduction. We’ve all watched AI slowly infiltrate every aspect of the business world, especially with big data’s rise. Then, suddenly, we witnessed ChatGPT become a household name in record time, and every other organisation is rushing to compete. It feels like we’ve watched history in the making, but no one is quite sure where it all will lead.

Sometimes it seems like AI lurks around every corner, completing every sentence on every platform. Whether that feels creepy or convenient is an individual sentiment, but for the most part, the technology seems empowering. It is enabling people to do things today that they wouldn’t have done before.

Almost everyone I know is using AI to produce written content these days. It’s not uncommon to hear small business owners excitedly talking about how they’ve taken marketing content into their own hands. Even people who typically shy away from new software and technology are creating all sorts of new content to support their personal brands and businesses. If that isn’t empowerment, I’m not sure what is!

AI: from writing to storytelling

If we turn our attention to the greater art of storytelling, we need to look beyond the content we write for the Internet or the books we author. There is also visual and audio storytelling. Telling stories is about transmitting knowledge and connecting with the viewer or listener… it’s how we remember things, visualise things, and sometimes how we pass along survival skills from one generation to the next. No matter, AI is going to influence the stories we tell with music, books, videos, and imagery in incredible ways.

And what about movies—the ultimate audio-visual storytelling format? Joe Russo, co-director of several Marvel movies and streaming series, recently predicted that generative AI would be able to create full-length feature films in about two years’ time. While it may take some time to fully automate box office hits, AI is sure to change the way we tell stories and consume them.

There are so many ways to tell a story (and so many ways AI is influencing all of them), but let’s get back to the main question. Does the rise of AI put us at risk of losing storytelling as we know it? Perhaps we should consider it an evolution, not a ‘loss’, but the issue is still complicated.

Maintaining our story construction skills

Humanity went through quite a lot to be able to tell stories the way that we do now. Art has become so much more advanced through art education and digital technology. In addition, today, literacy is commonplace and even taken for granted in many parts of the world. Reading and writing skills are a fundamental part of the curriculum in schools around the world.

While I don’t believe reading skills are in grave danger, you could argue that AI might deal some serious damage to writing skills. We spend a lot of time studying basic maths skills in school, but isn’t it easier to rely on a smartphone calculator? Past generations seem to have all the answers to basic household tasks that younger generations frequently consult Google and YouTube to learn about.

So, wouldn’t it make sense that, as humans rely more and more on intelligent writing technology to compose stories—or any content—our writing skills might atrophy? 

While AI can be a fantastic tool for storytelling, if we let our writing skills go and start to rely too heavily on technology, there’s the possibility that humans might forfeit their ability to drive the story where they want it to go.

Beyond writing, there are artists, singers, actors, dancers, illustrators, animators, choreographers, directors, producers, set designers, and so many other people behind modern-day stories. While writers feel like an easy target in this stage of AI development, some roles seem far more difficult to replace with technology. As we develop new ways to tell stories, we won’t necessarily lose the ways we tell stories today.

But will we lose all originality?

Tricky question. AI operates on patterns that exist in data. It was built to learn from the data it has been fed and replicate those patterns. That leads to several other questions about what data each AI platform is fed. The fact that different AI tools are based on different data sets makes them inherently unequal. (Even more alarming is how the tools may amplify inequality on a social level, but we’ll save that for another day.) 

The good news here is that AI has not lived or experienced emotions, and there’s plenty of room for writers to keep making a personal impact on storytelling. The bad news is that there’s a danger that we’ll lose some of that originality—and the element of storytelling altogether—in projects that put creatives up against tight deadlines.

More time for creativity, strategy, art, and joy? Maybe not.

Speaking of tight deadlines, let’s talk productivity.

2023 is almost half over, and I don’t know how that’s possible. Time is a precious commodity! One of the beauties of AI is that it allows us to save and reallocate time. With all the time we’ve freed up in structuring stories because our favourite AI tools did some of the work for us, might we be able to use our creativity even more than we used to? Or will we get lazier?

Will we use AI as our primary writing resource and use our skills of strategic thinking to create new ways to tell stories? Will we develop new creative concepts, create new storytelling formats, and enjoy the process even more? 

OR will changing expectations suck all of the fun out of creation as artists, creators, writers, and other storytellers are expected to produce more in less time? 

In the name of transparency, I’ve used AI writing tools to create entire articles in the recent past. But once I get the prompts right and have the final product in front of me, reading those articles generally makes me feel empty. The writing might be excellent, and the final product might be in the perfect tone of voice, but somehow I always feel a little left out. As a writer, I’ve always enjoyed the transformation process, and when AI does all the work, from start to finish, that process is gone. 

That process doesn’t require starting from scratch. Even when someone comes to me with a direction or even a full outline, and I’m not expected to create something from nothing, the evolution from general ideas to a full story is a process that brings me a lot of joy. One personal fear of mine is losing the ability to participate in that evolution—even if it does save a few hours of my day.

The fiery death of writer’s block

For mental health’s sake, let’s venture where there is absolutely nothing negative to say. AI is a writer’s block killer!

Storytelling is often a messy process. Many times writers get stuck and just don’t know what to say. I, for one, choose to look at AI as the fiery, painful death of writer’s block. AI has certainly gotten me out of a dark and frightening hole on multiple occasions over the last few months, and I’m sure other writers feel the same way. Perhaps that’s why so many tools are—wisely—named ‘writer’s assistants’.

Beyond writing, I believe that AI is a tool that should go into every professional storyteller’s toolbox. Even the storytellers who reject the notion of using AI could benefit from starting to use it sooner rather than later. As with most recent technologies that suddenly gain popularity, there’s a benefit to getting in and understanding the technology early.

AI: a new future for storytelling?

So, is AI the death of storytelling? The answer isn’t clear-cut, and there are so many other elements—from education and training to social considerations—to explore. AI brings both potential threats to the art of storytelling and exciting opportunities for its evolution.

As consumers, will we want to read stories with a label that says ‘human-written content’ on the cover, similar to the way we label minority-owned businesses on search engines and product packaging? Or will we look at stories as stories, no matter how much human involvement was required?

Perhaps the most interesting story of all is one that we’ll tell, as a society, through our increased use of AI. I hope we will view AI as a partner, not a replacement. Looking at AI as a partner will help us keep human empathy and retain the personal joy in telling stories. And, as with any great partnership, two voices are better than one. And with all that extra computing power by our side, I have a feeling we’ll create so many amazing new things and witness a breathtaking evolution in storytelling