Cracking the MARKETING Code: How TO Use AI to Authentically Engage Gen Alpha

I was recently talking to the former CMO of a consumer company about how AI will transform marketing.  Generation Alpha looks to be the first generation where Artificial Intelligence will be native to their lived experience.  Like how the internet shaped Millennials, and social media shaped Gen Z, Generation Alpha will be shaped by AI. 

For today’s marketers, it’s easy to assume that AI will be the natural tool to use for marketing to Gen Alpha.  It would make sense.  If they live in a world shaped by algorithms, then wouldn’t generative AI be the easy answer?  However, the inherent limitations of generative AI solutions present a conundrum for marketers trying to reach Generation Alpha. 

The preponderance of the language dataset that is used to train large language models like ChatGPT isn’t the language of Generation Alpha.  It is a mélange of the language of every generation, or more precisely mostly the adult population. Given the legal and commercial restrictions on accessing the communications of people under 18, there is much less data available from the AI generation to train the generative AI models.  The result is more likely to be biased away from, not towards, their vernacular.  And instead of it coming across as authentic, it may come across as what an adult thinks is the way Gen Alpha would speak.

So how can marketers reach Generation Alpha using generative AI?  It’s not a lost cause.  Rather, marketers need to first appreciate that AI is a tool that needs to be customized to be most effective with Gen Alpha.  To do that they need to look to creating purpose-built Ensemble AI solutions designed for the purpose of engaging Generation Alpha.  Absolutely leverage the generic large language models.  But also consider accessing more purpose-built small language models that can rely specifically on language datasets that reflect the writing and speech of the newest generation.