I spent a fascinating evening this week at the Fintech Circle Autumn Drinks. There was an interesting panel discussion about how fintechs can adopt AI, and there were some pertinent questions from the audience.
But my most surprising interaction happened much later, over a beer.
During the panel, there was some great advice from Carl Engelmark about how to explore and experiment with AI. Also, one of my favourite moments was where Philipp Buschmann reminded the audience that while he was a huge advocate for AI we, as people should never outsource our thinking to it. I think that’s enormously important.
Later, during drinks, I just about managed to keep up with the chat – although in honesty some of the tech speak went right over my head. But that’s fine. That’s one of my favourite things about working with fintechs – they’re full of people with big ideas and brilliant minds, and sometimes that means we mortals may struggle to keep up!
I talked to one particular founder (a systems architect, I think) and he’s one of those remarkable brains. He was explaining how his agents are constantly working, and he showed us on his phone – it was really impressive.
Then, I asked him how he managed his content. He smiled and shook his head, explaining that he wouldn’t need to work with a business like mine, because all his content was automated. No writers needed.
I found that interesting because clients choose who they work with because they feel they can trust them. Moreover, they trust the expertise, experience and thinking of that business. So, financial services and fintech firms need to publish content that specifically articulates the firm’s thinking. It needs to show the insights, expertise and experience that make the business unique – that thinking is, after all, what the entire business is built on. That’s how you build trust.
The question then is: how do you take that experience and turn it into marketing assets? I believe the answer is interviews with in-house experts. These are human exchanges that make experts comfortable enough to share their insights.
Those interviews become marketing assets, which are full of insights and experience that are unique to your organisation. By sharing the firm’s thinking, they help clients see why the business is a valuable partner.
Crucially, these are assets that competitors can’t replicate and that AI can’t generate.
I shared my thinking with this founder. He cocked his head, frowned and said, “Oh. No. That’s not the sort of content we’re doing.”
He seemed fine with that. Maybe he’s worried about giving away their IP or something. Although I don’t think that needs to be a concern, you can always choose what you do and don’t publish. What you publish is up to you. Entirely. And it speaks volumes.
That’s the problem.
Because when every business has access to the same AI tools, it’s easy for everyone to produce marketing content that sounds fine but doesn’t add anything to the conversation. Ultimately, it’s just noise, not a reason for a potential customer to trust you.
I came away from the evening feeling really energised about AI and how we might make use of it in our business, but also about what we shouldn’t give away to it, and what humans can and will always do better.
At Alex Genn Copywriting, we transform internal insight into unique marketing content using our Expert Insight Method™. Explore a low-cost, zero-commitment test with an Expert Insight Pilot.