As good or useful as a product might be, if a company fails to market it properly, it won’t take off. So, does AI have a marketing problem? According to former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, he thinks AI has a PR problem, and how the industry is not marketing its benefits as well as they can.
Eric Schmidt says AI has a PR problem
During a recent interview with Axios, Eric Schmidt suggests that AI has a PR problem. He argues that a lot of AI companies are doing a poor job of explaining the benefits of their products. He was quoted as saying, “Our industry does a terrible job of marketing our benefits. We talk about all the negatives without talking the positives, and people are much more likely to index their minds on the negatives.”
So, is he right? That’s a tricky question to answer. Yes, a lot of the benefits of AI seem to mostly appeal to users who are more tech-savvy or users who might stand to benefit from the improvements we see in every new model. But at the same time, many of us clearly rely on AI in our day-to-day lives.
Take Google as an example. Its AI Mode and AI Overviews in Search results could be extremely useful. Plus, the Gemini in Chrome extension does an excellent job at summarizing webpages and explaining information. Those are benefits that regular people can see and feel every day. However, users can appreciate the benefits while also being unhappy about the impact of AI in our daily lives.
The impact of AI
One of the more obvious negative impacts of AI is how it affects consumer gadgets. AI data centers require a lot of memory and hardware. As a result, the prices of consumer-grade RAM and memory have gone through the roof. This has negatively affected devices like computers, consoles, and our smartphones.
And speaking of data centers, some states in the US are seeing electricity prices go up. There’s also noise and pollution. Schmidt seemingly acknowledges some of this. During the interview, he says, “Let me state categorically that large data centers should not be near population centers. Why would this be controversial? And they should have their own power systems. One of the great things about America is we have an awful lot of empty spaces. Put them there.”
Can all of this be overcome with better marketing? That’s what the former Google CEO seems to suggest. But what do you think?
