This A.I. Bot Writes Such Convincing Ads, Chase Just ‘Hired’ It to Write Marketing Copy

Here are two headlines. One was written by a human. One was written by a robot. Can you guess which?

• Access cash from the equity in your home. Take a look.

• It’s true–You can unlock cash from the equity in your home. Click to apply.

Both lines of marketing copy were used to pitch home equity lines of credit to JPMorgan Chase customers. The second garnered nearly twice as many applications, according to the Wall Street Journal. It was generated by Persado’s artificial intelligence tool.

This is why Chase just signed a five-year deal with Persado Inc., a software company that uses artificial intelligence to tweak marketing language for its clients. After a trial period with the company, Chase has found Persado’s bot-generated copy incredibly effective. “Chase saw as high as a 450 percent lift in click-through rates on ads,” Persado said in a statement.

That email might have been written by a bot.

Chase says it will use Persado’s tool to rewrite language for email promotions, online ads, and potentially snail mail promotions. It’s also looking into using the tool for internal communications and customer service communications.

When asked if this might lead to downsizing, a Chase spokesperson told AdAge: “Our relationship with Persado hasn’t had an impact on our structure.”

Persado’s tool starts with human-written copy and analyzes it for six elements (narrative, emotion, descriptions, calls-to-action, formatting, and word positioning). It then creates thousands of combinations by making tweaks to those elements.

Kristin Lemkau, chief marketing officer at JPMorgan Chase, is fully on board with Persado. Chase began experimenting with its software three years ago. Sometimes the tool would recommend a wordier headline, which goes against marketing 101. But that longer headline garnered more clicks.

“They made a couple of changes that made sense and I was like, ‘Why were we so dumb that we didn’t figure that out?'” she told the Journal.

By: Betsy Mikel Owner, Aveck @BetsyM