Becker’s interviewed Shweta Ponnappa, senior vice president and chief marketing and digital experience officer of the Renton, Wash.-based health system, about her artificial intelligence plans for 2025 and beyond. The conversation has been lightly edited for clarity and brevity.
Question: How is Providence’s marketing department using AI?
Shweta Ponnappa: AI has now been around long enough that it’s not so much a trend; it’s the environment we live in. AI will be a key enabler of customer centricity for us. Last year, we discussed AI in search, which continues to be relevant. Fortunately, progress hasn’t been as fast as expected, allowing us time to get it right for our patients and consumers.
With generative AI, the field is cluttered with point solutions and consultants positioning gen AI as a solution for all marketing challenges, which it isn’t. AI typically supports narrow tasks rather than end-to-end processes, so multiple AI use cases must be integrated. There are two key parts: focusing on the right use cases and upskilling our team.
Regarding use cases, we have three key focuses:
- Patient journey optimization: Connecting patients to the care they need through segmentation and personalization.
- AI-augmented marketing operations: Using agentic AI to handle mundane tasks, freeing up teams for strategic work.
- Early product prototyping: Creating AI prototypes based on data and insights.
On upskilling, marketing teams need two core skill sets for AI: technologists who think like engineers and act on data quickly, and creatives who leverage storytelling tools to connect with consumers in new ways.
Q: Last year, you talked about generative AI in search and how it might affect web traffic in 2024. What were the effects, and how did you prepare or adapt?
SP: We haven’t seen much impact on traffic. Good content enables readiness for AI search changes. As long as we’re creating helpful content connecting patients to what they need, we’re in a good position. Our 2024 roadmap didn’t require much adjustment since focusing on ratings, reviews and strong content remain valid in a world of AI search.
Q: How can marketing departments adjust to the shift to AI?
SP: Marketing teams will undergo changes due to evolving skills. Leaders must become AI-native, much like the shift to becoming digital-native 15 years ago. The ability to pivot, learn new skills and hire for these competencies will be essential.
Q: How do marketing leaders become AI-native?
SP: There are many free resources available, like Google’s AI courses. Personally, I integrate AI into everything I do. For example, I challenge my teen son to use ChatGPT, Perplexity and Claude for test prep. I’ve used AI for planning travel or optimizing medication schedules for my parents. AI tools are becoming the starting point for many tasks. I’m using Google less and less and Perplexity more. I anticipate patients will do the same, so it’s vital to show up in the right places for our patients.
Q: If users rely on tools like ChatGPT or Perplexity, they might not visit websites as much. How do you adapt to this shift in how people access health-related information?
SP: In the late ’90s and 2000s, websites were ugly, with cluttered text and not a lot of beautiful designs. Now, interestingly enough, amazingly designed websites are going to matter less and less. I think we’re going back to a world of more text-based websites, because the goal is to enable AI tools to retrieve information. I wonder if we’re getting close to the cusp of doing a complete 360.
People are just not going to go to websites anymore. They’re going to rely on two things to get information: One is places like ChatGPT and Perplexity, which consolidate information and get them answers. And the other, more interesting way is AI agents, because anything that is repetitive, anything that can be programmed, is going to be done by an AI agent. The better text-enabled our websites are, the better position we’re going to be in an AI world.
