Artificial intelligence has been a useful tool for brand strengthening and business growth for some time now, and at the end of the Lider conference Marketing & Sales by Numbers, during the last panel, Croatian AI leaders touched upon this interesting topic.
The vision of Mislav Malenica, founder and director of one of the fastest-growing AI startups in Croatia Mindsmiths, when starting the business was precisely to make it easier for people to perform tasks using technology and to do them as quickly as possible. However, from thinking only in a technological direction, experience, especially in the American market, taught him that such thinking diverts from the path.
– As long as we are focused on technology, we will continue to do the same things we did before, only we will think we are doing them faster, with fewer people, and profits will be higher, while we forget that every time a technological shift occurs, our customer changes as well – said Malenica, adding that today’s modern customer expects a complete experience when purchasing products.
According to the latest McKinsey Global research, ¾ of organizations worldwide expect generative AI to disrupt their industry in the coming years, and 65 percent of companies globally are already using generative AI tools, which is double the number from ten months ago. The key question here is how generative AI has changed business in Croatia and how it has brought value to brands and customers?
One of the successful cases of AI application in Croatia is SuperfoodChef-AI by Coolinarika, launched by Podravka, one of the oldest food industries in the region. Ksenija Latković Kozarac, director of digital communications at Podravka, stated that the focus was on the user from the very beginning of this project.
– We cannot rely solely on numbers. The user has changed, and user expectations have changed. People in business who think about building a long-term story must start from that perspective – emphasized Latković Kozarac, also reflecting on the problem of obesity in Croatia after the country was declared the fattest nation in Europe last year. As a tool to address this issue, they used AI technology to make Coolinarika, which has so far functioned on the principle of one-way communication, interactive, thus encouraging users to live healthier.
Gordan Kreković, director of Visage Technologies, explained what generative artificial intelligence is, which has the ability to create new content and learns from already existing data.
– Generative artificial intelligence has become part of many tools used in marketing because it enables the automatic creation of text, images, or sound. Graphic design and photo editing have become more efficient, while the role of large language models in writing texts and ideation is already indispensable. Generative artificial intelligence allows for more efficient content preparation, which brings additional possibilities for personalization and content adaptation in real-time. This certainly includes new ways of interacting with end customers, such as using conversational interfaces that can be specifically tailored to narrower topics and the brand’s tone of communication – said Kreković on this topic, adding that the application of this technology in marketing is, in his words, extremely appealing.
