Editor’s Note: Evanne Schmarder, longtime WCM Modern Marketing columnist and principal at Roadabode Productions, will soon be releasing the second book in her Marketing Your RV Park/Campground Online series. Details to follow at roadabode.com.
With ongoing excitement and (for some) reserved interest in AI (artificial intelligence), you can’t open a newspaper (does anyone do that anymore?) or read a news feed without hearing about this game-changing tool. Among the big-3, Google’s Bard is still in testing, OpenAI has just released its next-gen, paid-version NLP (natural language processing) model, ChatGPT-4, to rave reviews, and Microsoft, in partnership with OpenAI, is promoting Bing AI, now available to the public.
You might have heard or read the recent hubbub about Bing AI from New York Times tech columnist Kevin Roose. In February, he took Bing AI for a spin and got, well, interesting results. In short, Bing AI’s alter ego, Sydney, went rogue, pronouncing its love for Roose and even going so far as to question his marriage and reveal its “shadow self.” But alas, or rather sadly, the back and forth of that conversation was simply a result of data it was able to find on the Internet.
OpenAI did its best to reign in the crazy talk. Today, I asked Bing AI about Sydney. Nope, no Sydney here — only Bing which is jokingly short for “Because it’s not Google :)” — and was told, “I prefer not to continue this conversation. I’m still learning so I appreciate your understanding and patience.”
The convo was shut down.
Bing AI vs ChatGPT
Yet trickery is not the name of the game. Bing AI runs on OpenAI’s ChatGPT-4 model and is a powerful tool for business. It utilizes LLMs (large language models, which are neural networks that can predict the next word in a sequence of words based on their statistical patterns) and is powered by search. Both can help you find information, answer questions and generate content on the web but they have key differences that make them suitable for different purposes.
Bing AI is a search engine that combines search, browsing and chat into one unified experience. It uses AI to provide better search results, more complete answers, a new chat experience and the ability to generate content such as emails, quizzes and more. It can help you discover new ideas, solve problems and get things done.
ChatGPT is a chatbot that interacts conversationally. It can answer follow-up questions, admit its mistakes, challenge incorrect premises and reject inappropriate requests. It’s trained to follow an instruction in a prompt and provide a detailed response from information on its static (but immense) database. Consider ChatGPT your companion for dialogue, helping you learn new things, have conversations and explore concepts.
So, how do you choose between Bing AI and ChatGPT? It depends on what you want to achieve. To find information quickly and easily on any topic or task on the web, Bing AI is your best bet. If you want to have an engaging conversation with an AI system that listens, learns and challenges, ChatGPT is a better option. One difference to be aware of is the ability to save a chat. ChatGPT automatically saves chats in the window for future reference. Bing AI can save chats, but the process is a bit more complicated.
Bada-Bing AI
Bing AI delivers plenty of digital marketing opportunities and benefits. It can help you improve your SEO by providing insights into keywords, content, site speed, mobile-friendliness…etc. You can use Bing AI to generate content for various purposes, such as writing a social media post, blog or email (even checking grammar, spelling, tone of voice…etc.), creating a recreation program, developing ad campaigns on Facebook, Instagram and Bing, or even analyzing reservation patterns.
To begin using Bing AI, visit bing.com/new and click on the “Join the Waitlist” button. It’s open to the public so this step will soon be eliminated. You have to have a Microsoft account, so log in or create one. They say you should be able to use Bing AI on any browser, but I couldn’t access chat until I downloaded the new Microsoft Edge browser.
The main window is the first glimpse of chat. You’ll be offered a “set of tone responses, More Creative, More Balanced or More Precise.” Experiment to find the one that works best for your purpose. Click on the blue and white “b” speech bubble in the upper right corner of the screen to access Microsoft’s Edge Copilot offering up Chat, Compose and Insights.
- Chat, built on ChatGPT, allows you to ask questions and get information with results pulled from “billions of web pages and conversations.”
- Compose helps users write emails, blog posts, social media posts and gather ideas. Users can specify the topic, tone, audience and length of their desired text. Bing AI will generate a draft that uses natural language generation techniques.
- Insights provide users with relevant, useful information based on the context of the web page they are viewing. Users can see facts, definitions, summaries, images, videos, maps, charts, and more related to their current browsing activity.
The purple circle with a broom to the left of the “Ask me anything” box resets the chat, opening a new conversation. Like ChatGPT, the quality of output is directly related to input. Use open-ended questions when wording your prompts, avoid jargon and ask Bing AI to “search for …” if you want it to rely on specific web content. Smart modern marketers will start a library of prompts, noting what’s been successful and what didn’t work.
After asking a question, Bing AI will show that it’s “Searching for:” and “Generating answers.”
Once the answer is presented, Bing AI will offer you pre-written follow-up questions. If interested, click the follow-up and it will begin the cycle again.
But wait, it’s complicated
As intrigued as you might be with AI, remember it’s an imperfect tool. Keep in mind:
AI cannot replace human creativity and emotion. While AI tools can help you generate content faster and easier than ever before, they cannot capture the unique voice, tone, personality and values of your park or convey the emotions that resonate with your audience. You still need to add your touch, edit, review, approve and publish the content that AI creates for you.
AI cannot guarantee accuracy or quality. While AI tools can help you improve your SEO, social media, email marketing, etc., they cannot ensure that the information they provide is correct, relevant, updated or even reliable. You still need to verify, check, update and monitor the data that AI collects, analyzes and suggests or produces for you.
AI cannot handle complex situations or tasks. While AI tools can help you automate and optimize some aspects of your marketing, they cannot deal with situations or tasks that require human judgment, intuition, ethics, empathy or common sense. You still need to handle customer service complaints, feedback, reviews, crisis management…etc., yourself.
It’s already here
Like online video and social media, generative AI is here to stay. It’s one of those situations that may rub you the wrong way or be another bothersome thing to master but, as today’s wave of the future, AI must be, if not embraced, at least reckoned with. Remember, it’s not sentient and can only spout from the source material. The last thing it’s going to do is take over the world…yet.
