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The influence of artificial intelligence (AI) on advertising is one of the industry’s great debates. Is it going to make humans redundant or open up a world of opportunity? The answer, as far as one can tell at this stage, is a bit of both.
In terms of creativity, AI has the potential to make ads more bespoke, more targeted and relevant while removing some of the ‘grunt’ work. The flip side is the challenge of drawing up the ethical red lines, ensuring transparency and that no one is conned by deep fakes nor copyrights breached.
The big question: threat or enhancement?
Simon Edward is a former VP, CMO and client advocacy leader at IBM UK & Ireland and has a mostly positive outlook. “AI is a chance to delve into the massive data that’s now available to change the operational side of things, and free up more time so people can spend more time thinking about creativity,” he told a panel discussion at Media 360. “If we implement AI correctly, then it probably is more opportunity than threat.”
However, Edward is concerned about AI “homogenising development”. The theory is that because AI learns from existing content it will “keep reproducing good rather than creating excellent content”. It could also remove some human intuition. The ultimate hope must be for AI “to help humans be better humans”.
Tom Curtis, executive creative director at EssenceMediacom and also creator of the Instagram art channel, @thingsihavedrawn, had a more circumspect view. “AI is going to have a huge impact on the creative industries,” he said. “The threat is real. I think a lot of people (in the wider creative industries) are going to be losing their livelihoods. Meanwhile, creativity in advertising seems to be at a pretty low ebb” – although he went on to explain how some of the advancements in AI will offer advertising various opportunities for the future.
Arjoon Bose, international head of creative and growth ideas at food company, General Mills, does not see AI as a replacement for human creativity but as something that can “augment or enhance”. However, he believes that brands and agencies need to be grappling with AI much more than is currently the case.
Public v private: how AI can be used safely
Edward cautioned against the unfettered use of AI because “if we’re all training ChatGPT then effectively you’re giving up the crown jewels, you're training it so that everyone else in the world can benefit”. He advised being “extremely thoughtful about how you deploy public AI”.
Bose added: “We have a personalised AI chatbot which has been set up for us as employees to really lean into. It gives us some kind of structures within which we can use AI and understand how it mitigates risk. And we can use it as a tool for better collaboration, creativity and ultimately efficiency. We are using conversational AI to learn what food products consumers want – it’s quite exciting.”
Curtis has some client contracts that ban the use of AI. “With other clients, we need to explain how we’re using it,” he said. “We use the proprietary stuff to create incredibly cool, awesome things for our clients that give them a competitive advantage.”
Edward also has concerns about training AI with “an inherent set of bias assumptions”. He continued: “If it starts creating its own truth or hallucination, we’ll end up with content that isn’t necessarily meaningful. So there needs to be a balance in that.”
The quick step: speeding up creativity
“Months to moments,” was how Edward summarised how AI can accelerate a creative process. “Using generative AI to create an environment over having to physically build an environment can be hugely beneficial,” he added.
“AI is allowing us to speed up the process to create an incredible number of different relevant ads for people,” said Curtis. “One of the most important reasons for using AI is to optimise creativity. By using AI to put different messages in front of people, I guarantee you they’re going to be more effective.”
For Bose, AI can eliminate “the unsexy stuff – image management, asset management, content management, even certain aspects of data mining”. Curtis also believes that AI has huge potential for use in client pitches, where the content will not be made public.
Content and context: what the future looks like
“We truly believe AI coupled with data, and CRM specifically, has a big role to play for enterprises and brands in solving human problems and potentially delivering jobs,” said Bose. “The ability to understand content and context – and then being able to create for it – is a game changer in this instance. We’re still relying on human creativity as a superpower but we’re going to supercharge that with AI.”
Curtis believes that the use of AI for increased optimisation is “still untapped”. He added: “As an industry, we do need to up our game but we need to use AI ethically and not get lazy.”