Are digital marketeers just influencers or professional manipulators in the age of AI?

The third day of this year's Inbound Conference was very demanding in terms of the amount of material on offer and the complexity of the topics. So today I will concentrate on a few highlights and relevant topics.

Disruption in education through technology

Until 15 years ago, education was a scarce and expensive commodity around the world, which entailed a great deal of discrimination. With Sal Khan, a US-American with Indian roots, this has changed rapidly. The Khan Academy, which today has 80 million enrolled students and is active in over 190 countries in a wide variety of languages, emerged from a family support program 14 years ago via telephone and later via web conference! Who would have thought 15 years ago that the Internet could revolutionize and democratize education globally? With Khan Academy, education is no longer a scarce commodity and no longer expensive - the institution is designed as a "not for profit". What has made the success of the Khan Academy possible?

• Internet enables global access 
• The pace of learning is determined individually by the student (not by the pace of a school class)
• The Academy is scaled up at marginal cost - the learning content has already been created - and in a few years' time, 1 billion students could be enrolled

Technology certainly has negative effects, but this example shows that this educational revolution was only possible thanks to the Internet.

Sal Khan, founder of the Khan Academy, in an interview at Inbound 2019

Artificial intelligence and ethics

Professor John Basl from Northeastern University in Boston took to the stage as an expert on the topic of ethics in the age of information and AI.

He began by making it clear that AI compliance is far from meeting ethical requirements. He believes that every company, large or small, that uses AI needs to address the ethical implications and set appropriate standards. He does not advocate a (state) top-down approach, but rather a company- and industry-specific approach. And yes, to put it bluntly, he sees the task of marketers as manipulating customers, as information is prepared and presented for a specific purpose. The use of AI massively increases the possibility of influence, which also increases the ethical risk. In his remarks, however, he made it clear that there are no blanket statements on this, but that the context must always be taken into account when using AI, and that the line between influencing and manipulation can only be drawn depending on the situation.  

How do marketers become "friction spotters"?

I talk to Emily Haahr, who is responsible for customer service and support at Hubspot, about this topic. From Emily's point of view, friction spotting takes place on different levels. At Hubspot, it starts with mystery shopping, which is not just limited to the purchase, but also includes the use and support experience. The experiences made are then recorded in detail in scripts and evaluated. Friction spotting then moves on to the level of customer interaction, where a continuous exchange is sought. This allows customer feedback to be obtained promptly.

On the third (aggregated) level, there are statistics that show the "pain volume index" - fields where acute action is needed to eliminate friction. According to Emily, Hubspot is also guided by showcases such as Uber - a very convincing example of how a customer process was implemented conveniently and without breakpoints. And finally, Emily says that the recruitment process for new employees is important for good friction spotters. Here, Hubspot works according to the legendary principle of American Express at the time: Hire for Attitudes and Train for Skills. This principle is based on the fact that people's personalities can hardly be changed, but their specialist knowledge can certainly be trained.

And we are already approaching the last day of Inbound 2019 with more exciting presentations and interviews.

Emily Haahr, Chief Service&Support Officer at Hubspot, in conversation with Christoph Oggenfuss from MK Marketing & Kommunikation.