AI tools can help streamline your marketing processes, from copywriting to image creation. Learn about the top AI marketing tools and how to use them. Think about the different types of digital marketing campaigns and the systems and processes involved in each. There are AI marketing tools for almost all of these processes, but how do you know when it’s best to use AI? The key is finding a tool with the right technology for the right application. Here are some proven options for integrating AI into your marketing to fit your business’s unique needs.

What are AI marketing tools?

AI marketing tools are software applications that use artificial intelligence (AI) to promote products and services. This umbrella term encompasses a range of technical and marketing tasks, from content creation to customer segmentation.

AI Marketing Tool Use Cases

AI marketing tools can partially or fully automate many tasks in your business.

Use cases for AI marketing tools include:

• Copy ideation and drafting
• Edit product images
• Content Marketing Keyword Optimization
• Live Chat for Customer Service
• Manage content schedule
• Project Management Workflow

Are AI Marketing Tools Actually Useful?

According toa Salesforce report , leveraging AI will be the top priority for marketers by 2024. But just because a marketing tool advertises AI capabilities doesn’t mean it’s necessarily better than existing tools. “AI can sometimes be a solution looking for a problem,” Neil Hoyne, Google’s chief data and measurement strategist, tells Shopify Masters. “You shouldn’t view AI as something you have to integrate into your business right away or worry about getting left behind,” he adds. Rather than overhauling your marketing tech stack, Neil suggests asking yourself, “Where can AI add immediate value to our day-to-day processes and operations?”

As we slowly test the potential of AI software to improve our current marketing strategies, we can ensure that AI tools are supporting our business, rather than the other way around.

3 Types of AI

1. Generative AI
2. Predictive AI
3. Natural Language Processing (NLP)

Understanding AI can help you choose the tools that will best help your business. Common types of AI technologies used in marketing include:

1. Generative AI

Generative AI uses machine learning to generate new content, such as text, images, videos, or computer code. For example, Shopify’s free business name generator uses generative AI to suggest business names that fit your industry and brand personality.

Unlike predictive or discriminative AI models that analyze data to make predictions and suggestions, generative models ingest vast amounts of content and actually generate new content based on user prompts. According to a 2024 survey of ecommerce marketers , 56% said they have used generative AI tools at work—a higher percentage than any other type of AI.

While there are concerns that generative AI will replace some marketing roles, marketers are generally using generative AI marketing tools in a way that works with AI to streamline and optimize marketing workflows. When used strategically, this allows you to combine the benefits of AI automation and insights with the benefits of human expertise and quality assurance.

For example, Shopify offers a generative AI tool as part of Shopify Magic. Shopify merchants can use the Shopify Magic tool to get variations of copy suggestions for their product descriptions, email campaigns, and FAQ pages. These AI-generated suggestions help merchants get inspired and get started, saving them time and energy so they can focus on refining their copy.

While other forms of artificial intelligence have been in development for decades, OpenAI’s ChatGPT is currently the best-known example of generative AI, and what people think of when they hear “AI.”

2. Predictive AI

Predictive AI analyzes structured data from the past to find patterns and use them to predict future outcomes. According to the same 2024 survey , 53% of ecommerce marketers are using predictive AI for applications such as marketing personalization.

The main advantage of predictive AI is that it can make data-driven decisions in the same amount of time it would take to make a decision intuitively, because computer models can recognize patterns in customer data much faster than the human brain. Predictive AI is less talked about than generative AI, but you’re likely already using software based on predictive AI.

3. Natural Language Processing (NLP)

Natural language processing uses machine learning to help understand the nuances of human language. (Machine learning describes the type of training that AI goes through to “learn” human behavior. In the case of NLP, training involves large language models (LLMs).)

NLP took Google by storm in 2018 when it released its language model BERT. BERT-based algorithms improved Google Search by analyzing not only the words in a query, but also the relationships between words, allowing it to understand the nuances of a query.

Once engineers figured out how to train AI to understand human language, it didn’t take long to train AI to generate human-sounding text. NLP techniques like BERT paved the way for generative AI tools like Gemini and ChatGPT.

AI tools for search engine optimization

• SERP Analysis Tool
• Technical SEO Tools
• SEO Content Writing Tools

Every marketer knows the importance of search engine optimization (SEO). No matter how great your product page or blog is, if it’s not optimized for search engines, no one will see it. AI SEO tools promise to speed up the time-consuming task of website optimization, but do they really work? Here are some of the best ways to leverage AI for SEO:

SERP Analysis Tool

If you want your product page or blog post to appear at the top of the search engine results page (SERP) for a specific keyword, you need to do a SERP analysis. This basically involves looking at the current search engine results page to understand search intent and identify content that already exists. If you’re only doing a SERP analysis for one or two keywords, it might not be too difficult, but if you’re comparing hundreds of keywords, it can be time-consuming. This is where AI can come in handy.

Example SERP Analysis Tool

• Surfer's SERP Analyzer tool uses NLP to perform sentiment analysis to predict whether top-ranking articles are positive or negative for a given keyword.
• Ahrefs ' Keywords Explorer tool uses AI to match top-ranking keywords to specific search intents. For example, it provides keywords tailored to search intents like "find the best microwave oven model."

Technical SEO Tools

If you want to improve your on-page SEO without any coding knowledge, NLP and generative AI (GenAI) can help. For example, Ryan Law , Director of Content Marketing at Ahrefs, uses ChatGPT to generate hreflang tags for international SEO.

You can also use generative AI to generate product schemas, which are codes that allow search engines to display rich results, such as product images, ratings, and prices.

SEO Content Writing Tools

Today’s SEO tools not only use AI to optimize copy, but popular software like Surfer and ContentShake also help you write and optimize entire articles.

A common concern about AI content generation is that while AI-generated content looks and sounds more human than previous versions of AI, the language can be somewhat stiff and the content can be generic. Therefore, SEO experts do not recommend using AI-generated content exclusively on your blog. Even if you do use AI-generated content, it should always be proofread and edited by humans to ensure it meets your brand and quality standards.

Here’s an example of how AI helps Surfer generate content overview ideas:

“Most of the tools I’ve used so far can help you generate basic text, an email subject line, a fun image, or a simple blog post,” marketing consultant Nik Sharma shares in his DTC branding newsletter . “But I still think a lot of it (if not all of it) should be reviewed and edited by a human. It still sounds a bit mechanical and doesn’t really align with your brand.”

Social Media AI Tools

• Social Media Management Tools
• Social listening tools
• AI image generation tool

Timing is everything in social media marketing. AI tools can be a huge help here, because unlike social media managers, they don’t sleep.

Social Media Management Tools

Social media management (SMM) software lets you manage all of your social media accounts from a single interface, allowing you to schedule posts and measure performance without switching apps. SMM tools often offer tools tailored to different situations. For example, Sprout Social uses machine learning to determine the optimal time to post based on audience engagement. Additionally, their AI Assist feature uses generative AI (GenAI) to write alt text for posts on Platform X.

Social listening tools

It’s 10 p.m. Do you know where your customers are? AI-based social listening tools can help you keep track of what your target audience is posting on social media 24/7, so you don’t miss a trend (even when your social media manager is sleeping). One example is Talkwalker , acquired by SMM Hootsuite in April 2024. Talkwalker’s Blue Silk GPT extracts text from social media posts (including images and audio) and organizes it into AI-generated summaries and conversation clusters.

AI image generation tool

AI image generators can sometimes produce some pretty weird results (e.g., bodybuilder croissants ), but they can be a great solution when you need to respond quickly to a relevant topic. Chili's, for example, responded quickly to a post on X.

According to a 2024 Klaviyo survey , 36% of ecommerce marketers are using AI for image creation. (Slightly fewer, 30%, are using AI writing tools for copy creation.)

“These tools are amazing at creating fantasy-style graphics,” Nik Sharma, a marketing consultant, shares in his newsletter. However, these tools may not be able to reach the level of skilled human designers. “Our team of designers, who have been creating ads and sites for years, understand which creative formats convert best, and they have the experience to understand what styles have been tried before and what our customers prefer, so they can still create assets faster and with less error than AI tools.”

OpenAI’s image generator DALL-E (the company also makes ChatGPT) is one of the more popular AI generators used by both Microsoft Copilot and Canva . Adobe Firefly , Midjourney , and Stable Diffusion also use their own text-to-image models. Shopify also offers an AI image generator, but it’s focused on improving the product photography process for merchants. This generative AI tool from Shopify Magic makes it easy to remove, replace, and match the background of your product photos, giving you a more professional and consistent brand image. Especially for merchants who are still honing their photography skills, this tool can be a huge time-saver and quality boost for your online store.

AI tools for direct marketing

Direct marketing can be a powerful relationship-building tool because it allows you to communicate directly with your customers via email and text messages, rather than relying on third parties like social media platforms or search engines. Direct marketing has long benefited from automation, with the ability to automatically send emails and SMS messages when certain conditions are met, without human intervention. But AI has the potential to go beyond simple automation. Think of it as A/B testing taken to the next level.

For example, skincare brand Tata Harper used Klaviyo AI to optimize when and how to display pop-up emails and SMS sign-up forms on their site. According to a 2024 case study , instead of manually A/B testing two form variations (test and control), the Tata Harper team was able to simultaneously test 20 AI-generated variations.