Get off work 2 hours early every week! Uber's secret to introducing AI: Find a "high-impact" entry point and make good use of first principles

How much work time can be saved by importing AI? When enterprises introduce AI, which aspects are more effective to start with?

Zhai Lingxiu, chief operating officer of marketing technology at Uber in the United States, pointed out at the "2024 MarTech Marketing Technology Summit" that cost is one of the problems that many companies currently encounter, and marketing technology (MarTech) that combines new technologies such as AI and data will become more and more popular. is increasingly important as it can bring greater efficiency to the organization.

According to Uber's internal survey, the introduction of AI can reduce working time by about 2 hours per week, which translates to about 5% of the working hours per week. It is very important to find the "high-impact" introduction point, that is, the point of entry that can best help improve efficiency and effectiveness.

For example, she said that high-impact areas where AI can be applied may include creative content, localization, customer relationship management (CRM), and paid marketing optimization.

5 scenarios where Uber's marketing team introduced AI, covering text, images, sounds and assisted decision-making

Specifically, the import aspects of Uber in the United States include the following 5 aspects:

• Creative localization: Translate English advertising copy into content that is in line with local culture, and use AI to significantly shorten the work time from weeks to minutes.
• Advertising copy generation: Use AI to write and enhance paid search advertising copy based on local keywords and existing performance data.
• Image generation: Use AI to quickly generate advertising illustrations suitable for different markets, replacing the traditional design process and increasing the creative diversity of illustration generation.
• SEO optimization: Automatically generate personalized descriptions for different regions to improve keyword rankings and website visibility.
• Generating narration audio for social ads: Instagram video ads that used to cost thousands of dollars to dub can now be designed and generated using AI for less than US$ 3.

After deciding on the orientation, Uber also established clear KPIs and return on investment (ROI) for each project to measure the effectiveness of the introduction; it also established a clear priority (Prioritization) to prioritize each project to ensure limited of people and resources can have the greatest impact.

Use first principles to break down complex problems and develop problem-solving abilities in 3 steps

When enterprises introduce AI and new technologies, they often encounter many difficulties in the process of implementing MarTech, including cross-departmental collaboration and communication, limited resources, and difficulties in tool selection and evaluation. It can be said that the most indispensable thing is "problems."

"The most indispensable thing for organizations is problems. Pure complaints cannot solve problems. Simplifying complex problems and converting negative energy into actions and solutions is the key to growth." Zhai Lingxiu said.

One of the ways she leads the team to solve transformation difficulties is to use the "First Principle" proposed by Elon Musk. The specific steps are as follows:

1. Deconstruct the problem: Break the problem into smaller parts and identify the root cause of each part. For example, when delays occur in the operational process, instead of directly blaming the execution layer, we trace back to each link of the entire process to analyze which section of resource allocation or policy setting caused the problem.
2. Hypothesis verification: Make a hypothesis about the cause of each problem and verify the correctness of the hypothesis through actual data or testing.
3. Optimization process: The team can gradually experiment with minimum viability testing (MVP, Minimum Viable Product), start improving the problem on a small scale, and then expand the implementation based on the test results.

By cultivating this thinking framework, Uber's marketing team can not only effectively solve problems during transformation, but also improve overall productivity and efficiency. Zhai Lingxiu reminded that AI itself is just a tool, and the key lies in how to use these technologies to cooperate with internal teams to achieve organizational goals.

In the future, with the continuous evolution of AI and data technology, MarTech will not only be an auxiliary tool in the marketing field, but also one of the core strategies for enterprises to achieve efficient operations and enhance competitiveness. In the transformation journey, the key to success depends not only on technical capabilities, but also on whether the team has a data-driven culture and the ability to continuously learn and grow.