In the Winter of 2024, when we launched the world’s first Future of Marketing course at the Schulich School of Business – York University, knowing how to prompt an LLM effectively was enough to show you were ahead of the curve.
But today, even a sophisticated prompt will only take you so far. AI makes intelligence a commodity, so it’s harder for your LLM output to stand out.
How do marketers use generative AI to drive innovation, create value and gain a competitive edge? By building your own AI app, tool, agent or workflow.
We’ve recently seen an explosion of tech companies offering no-code AI tools. This includes: OpenAI Custom GPT, Bolt, Lovable, Make, Cursor, Bubble, Claude and Zapier, to name a few.
These easy-to-use systems let marketers build tech products and automations that once cost companies big bucks and take many months to complete.
Building AI into the Course Experience
Our goal for the Future of Marketing course is to teach students how to develop AI apps and automations and provide them with the most up-to-date skills companies need.
Here’s a quick overview of what we’re planning.
David’s Course (Undergraduate Business Students)
David’s course now has a group assignment where small teams of students develop a Custom GPT that addresses a real-world marketing problem. Students are encouraged to talk to a business and learn about a marketing challenge they face. Then, they get to work building a Custom GPT that helps the business grow.
David: I chose OpenAI as the platform because it’s easily accessible and is the most widely used LLM. A Custom GPT creates a working, personalized version of ChatGPT that students can construct with specific instructions, knowledge and tools to perform specialized tasks.
For instance, the Future of Marketing Institute wanted to streamline how we select podcasts for our curated podcast series. In the past, the team used to spend hours listening to full episodes to find relevant content.
To improve efficiency, we created a Custom GPT called the FMI Video/Podcast Content Estimator. After you upload the transcript of a podcast or video, this GPT:
- Estimates the percentage of content directly related to the future of marketing.
- Indicates how long you have to listen/watch before future of marketing content appears.
- Provides a short synopsis of the major future of marketing themes.
Try it yourself and see how well it performs.
Interns use the GPT’s analysis to determine if a podcast meets content requirements and merits a full listen before deciding on inclusion. By streamlining the review process, our Custom GPT boosted both the efficiency and quality of the FMI team’s work.
Martin’s Course (Graduate Business Students)
Martin’s taking a similar yet slightly different tack for an assignment in the course he’s teaching.
Martin: This year, I’m creating a client-agency simulator, that, in the past would have required coding skills I don’t have. I used a combination of structured and ‘vibe coding’. That is, I worked out the logic and had long back and forth conversations with Claude. The result? A simulation that helps teams of students learn about dealing with clients and solving their problems.
Here’s how it works.
Each team is randomly assigned a client with a distinct personality. Some clients are friendly and social. Others are all business and terse. And still others are harried and disorganized.
The client provides each team a unique brief outlining a goal and measurable objectives. And, similar to David’s course, students need to create a strategy and use AI to build a product or tool to help achieve each client’s objectives.
The student teams then present their strategies and the AI apps or products they built in class.
What Will the Future Bring?
A year ago, we wrote about what we were anticipating in the Winter 2024 and Fall 2024 Future of Marketing courses. Fast-forward to today and, while much of the content has changed, we feel the same excitement and anticipation heading into the fall semester.
Check back with us in early 2025 to learn how the Future of Marketing course continues to evolve.
This post was written by FMI Executive Director and Professor David Rice and FMI Associate Director and Professor Martin Waxman.
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