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Creative Opinions on AI

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Dan Koren, Head of ADI at Wix.com, on how AI is creating a new market standard for web design.

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Currently, artificial intelligence is mainly associated with robotics and self-driving cars. Nonetheless, major advances in AI technology have opened the door to many new ideas that were thought impossible a few years ago. Some of the latest AI developments have resulted in new products, particularly creative bots that can design, write stories or even compose music. However, AI developments get even more exciting when applied to digital data and design, since it benefits the creative community such as designers, illustrators, photographers and others. Particularly those planning to take advantage of the opportunities created by the growing freelance gig economy. Things get really exciting with the ability to add machine-learning algorithms into tasks that used to be resource and time consuming such as website building. Platforms like Wix.com have analysed the challenges of creating an online presence (time, design and content creation) and are now offering Artificial Design Intelligence, an opportunity to create a stunning personalised website tailored to their needs, instantly and for free. By the end of this decade, AI will be part of our everyday life--whether it be to help build and manage an online business, predict the weather or live healthier lives. I am excited to see the innovation in this space, particularly those developments that will support the growth and efficiency of the creative community.

 

Dr Sarah Fletcher of the Chartered Institute of Ergonomics and Human Factors and Head of Industrial Psychology and Human Factors Group at Cranfield University, on the design and safe practice within human-machine working environments.

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In any given human-machine working situation, human factors need to be taken into consideration in order to ensure the design of the workflow system is effective and that humans can integrate with automated systems with little or no errors. Humans often bear the brunt of responsibility when errors arise in robotic environments. Therefore, the application of Human Factors in design is vital to ensure we are creating robots that can effectively work and interact with people. For example, humans come in all shapes and sizes and, unlike machines, bring levels of unpredictability in their responses and behaviour. Human variability has been a traditional problem for manufacturing system design and performance prediction, but the progressive trend for more flexible and adaptable workforces means that differences between operators and their capabilities is being seen as more valuable in systems which require more frequent product and skills changes. So, as workforces become more mobile and diverse, Human Factors is needed to ensure inclusive design of robots and intelligent systems to improve their capability for interpreting and responding to human operator requirements.

 

Stephen Parker, CEO of Parker Software, on whether artificial intelligence is really all it’s cracked up to be.

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One of the most notable applications of AI from the past few years is the creation of intelligent assistants. Intelligent assistants are interactive systems that can communicate with humans to help them access information or complete tasks. This is usually accomplished with speech recognition technology; think Apple’s Siri, Microsoft’s Cortana or Amazon’s Alexa. Most of the intelligent assistants that we are familiar with today are consumer facing and are somewhat general in the tasks they can complete. However, these applications are now making their way into more advanced customer service settings. While there is certainly a space for these automated assistants in the enterprise realm, there is a debate as to whether this technology could fully replace a contact centre agent. Automated processes are invaluable for speeding up laborious processes and completing monotonous customer service tasks. But as any customer service expert will tell you, the human touch is what elevates good service to an excellent experience for the customer. Simple tasks will no doubt be increasingly managed and completed using automation and AI-enabled agent support systems, whereas complex issues will still require the careful intervention of a human agent. During a TED Talk on artificial intelligence, philosopher and technologist Nick Bostrom claimed that “machine intelligence is the last invention that humanity will ever need to make.” However, contact centre agents needn’t hang up their headsets just yet. Artificial intelligence won’t be replacing the call centre agent any time soon. The only guarantee is that the role of a call centre agent will continue to evolve.

 

“Next Year's Best New Artist” by Graeme Asher and Zach Marley from Frog Design.

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Sony CSL Research Laboratory recently synthesized thousands of pages of sheet music to produce “Daddy’s Car,” a song generated by AI and refined by a human composer. We’ve felt the effects of procedural generation in video games, too, from the randomized dungeon corridors of “Diablo” to the nearly infinite worlds of “No Man’s Sky.” “Sunspring,” a short sci-fi film written entirely by AI, premiered at a London film festival earlier this year. Sony’s Beatles-esque track is surely a pale imitation – impressive enough to draw YouTube views, but not burning up the charts. And “Sunspring” works as a surreal, bite-size experiment, but would be difficult to stretch to feature-length. So what happens when the song is a hit? When the film nets an Oscar? When your favorite artist is artificial? These imitative algorithms we find writing pop songs, short films, and generating first-person shooter levels will evolve to process broad and diverse inputs – cross-pollinating rhythms, language, and imagery from deep and unlikely corners of our physical and virtual worlds. This is our new creative frontier.

 

David Attard, Product Manager at Switch Digital, on the AI revolution that needs to penetrate the "less techy industries" if it wants to make a real impact.

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I strongly believe that AI and machine learning has revolutionised certain tech industries, but we are still waiting for more revolutions in less techy industry. The problem is that. so far, AI has been applied to industries where the engineers understand AI and are able to apply machine learning to their problem, whilst potentially the expertise is still missing in other industries. I do feel strongly that it is time to have an AI-as-a-Service kind of offering, whereby abstracting the complexity of the underlying technology, every-day industries can start taking advantage of this. I'm sure it will be any day now when this will happen and we will immediately see a huge boom in the adoption of AI at that point, because AI will literally give those industries an unfair advantage over their competitors who are not using it.

 

Clemi Hardie, Founder of event tech company Noodle Live, on the next frontier of collaborative AI.

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In January this year we saw loads of products incorporating AI at the Las Vegas tech show CES. Google’s Alexa seemed to be the AI of choice, partly because it can easily be embedded into other tech. Alexa was talking back to us from cars, fridges, lamps and baby monitors. CES is a great time to preview tech products that are going to be important in the months to come, so this was a huge indicator of the growing importance of AI. I think the rise of AI will start to fuel the resurgence of robotic technology. After all, Artificial Intelligence needs a body to live in. Robot technology is evolving quickly. Over the next 12 months we are likely to see plenty of innovation and growth in this area. But robots will need to get a lot more functional and affordable before they become part of an everyday event tech package. Artificial intelligence will need to mesh seamlessly with great functionality and reliability. Nobody’s really managed to combine all of those elements – yet. In my opinion, collaborative AI is likely to be the next frontier. It won’t be good enough for an AI device to operate in isolation, all of our tech devices will need to talk to each other and our artificial companions could be great hubs from which we can co-ordinate all of them. Our Amazon Echo or our Smartphone could become the hub device from which we talk to our fridge, our heating systems, our baby monitors, our cars and all of our other connected devices. This is the so-called ‘internet of things’ that has been predicted for years. As more of our ‘things’ begin to connect to the internet, AI will step into the role of ‘office manager’ for all of our different devices.

 

Daniel Hegarty, CEO and founder of digital mortgage broker habito on how AI chatbots will put consumers back in control.

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Next year we’ll see chatbots move from testing-ground to mainstream. Expect them to become more polished and human-like, and even more ingrained in the fabric of our daily lives – whether you’re ordering groceries from across the kitchen using Amazon’s Alexa or transferring money to a family member using a Facebook chatbot. We’re coming to understand that users do not want more interaction, they want less - bots offer a comfortable conversational paradigm that allow us to get directly to what we need, yet still allow us to interact with them passively. While there’s still some hesitation around AI amongst consumers, there is a natural adoption curve of all new technologies. However, we’ve witnessed first-hand, that even when it comes to mortgages (the biggest financial commitment we’ll ever likely make) people trust AI if it’s delivering a service that meets their needs and promises the most precious commodity of all; Time.

 

Paul Jarrett, Founder and Director at Sonin, on how is AI currently being used by marketers and how it could be used in the foreseeable future.

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I often talk about the blurring line between the physical and digital world, AI is very much an enabler in bridging this gap, and using technology to further support our daily activities. This means there will be a bigger focus from brands on creating a seamless experience, where a user's digital history and behaviour transfers through to the physical store. So when we go into a car showroom to buy a new car, the sales person can use our online username to understand the research and engagement we've already had with that brand. Use of AI in marketing: As consumers we want to complete tasks quickly and easily as possible, and we want personalised experiences. AI will support both brands and businesses to improve their relationships with their consumers, by understanding large amounts of data, moving it seamlessly and allowing intelligent predictions of the users next move. It gives the marketing and advertising industry huge opportunities to process user profiles quickly and segment into much more detailed personas for better targeting. It won't be long until we see interactive billboards that give personalised messages and instantaneously change dependant on your facial expression.

 

Matt Klippel, Technical Director at STACK, on AI as the 'buzzword' of 2017 and the need for greater monitoring.

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SXSW felt like every other session was about artificial intelligence (AI) or machine learning (ML) in one way or another. Whether the presenters of those sessions were genuinely using AI or ML or just general, clever computational techniques, it was definitely the buzzword that attracted attention. Progress over the last two or three years in AI and ML has been incredible and the rate of improvement feels exponential. The availability of AI as a service via IBM Watson, Azure, AWS and numerous other cloud based platforms and providers has made it a tool we can consider in almost every element of what we do - whether part of a creative solution; as a means to communicate with customers in a more natural, conversational way; or to improve our analytics, targeting and personalisation. Real time predictive analytics is particularly exciting and can iteratively improve the customer relationship for both brand and customer with better and timelier content, customer service and experience. As with any tool or technique, monitoring is critical and we need to be aware of any potential risk for unintended consequences (Microsoft’s Tay, was an extreme example of this), but I’m massively excited for what we’re going to see and be able to do with AI and ML in the near future.

 

Varun Bhanot, Head of PR and Partnerships at Hubble (the largest online marketplace for finding and renting office space in London) on what AI has to offer the property industry that no other technology can and its potential dangers.

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AI offers a speed, accuracy and level of insight that no other platform, technology or human can match. At Hubble, our team is launching a system that will allow AI-enabled searches to deliver within 30 seconds what a traditional property broker would need around three days to research and collate. For example, if someone from a creative agency came onto the Hubble site and entered their work email, our AI device would instantly know where your current office is, how big your company is, whether you're creative, where you’ve moved over the past five years, and would automatically start making advanced recommendations for potential new workspace in moments. This means we can offer creative agencies and all our clients instant results that are perfectly tailored to their needs. Better still, it means our clients in turn don’t need to dedicate tonnes of time to finding the perfect workspace, and can focus on their own client work and growth, whether this is in the creative sector or any other industry. In this respect, I see AI as a great enabler, which could help all industries speed up their processes, and take over more boring tasks, so we can all focus on higher value and more interesting work.

 

Jon Buss, Managing Director at big tech brand Yext, on how AI is making search smarter and the impact on advertisers.

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As we move from mobile-first to what Google chief executive Sundar Pichai termed an “AI-first world,” businesses must thrive in an environment where technology is making more and more decisions about the business before the consumer even sees it. Voice search, once a novelty, is quickly seizing a high share of search volume – 20%, according to Google. Its growing importance is changing search strategies for businesses in several ways. The most fundamental difference is that voice search only returns one result for most queries. Its value proposition is convenience, and part of that convenience is honing in on the user’s intent and providing one (hopefully) relevant and customised response. The more information on products you promote, the more highly you will rank for tailored searches such as “Where can I buy a vacuum cleaner?” Making artificial intelligence (AI) work for, instead of against, a business requires rich and precisely structured data about businesses individual locations, so that queries such as “Where’s a good supermarket near me?” drive customers to your business instead of the competition. Google data shows that 30% of mobile searches relate to location. Not optimising for local search (including voice), jeopardises a huge revenue stream.

 

Javier Diez-Aguirre, CMO at Ricoh Europe, on the "transformational" potential of AI in marketing.

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The advertising and marketing world continues to evolve alongside the impacts of technology, especially as consumers shift towards online services for a more immediate and creative experience. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is another technology-driven concept that brands can harness to provide better experiences for customers, although working examples are in relative infancy as it stands. Despite this, customers are craving more and more bespoke, personalised ads and brands can turn to AI to meet the demands of modern day audiences. The term ‘transformational’ is far too frequently used when it comes to new technological changes but in my view AI is exempt from this, and is set to really change marketing. In marketing, brands often do not have the capacity to analyse and fully understand the customer’s data but the information tends to be easily accessible. This is where AI can help; think of data like a segment of DNA, a spiral of information if you like. AI can efficiently crunch all the data, turn it into information and understand how particular customers prefer to interact with brands. It can also unpick the context and identify where the best placed interactions are for each individual customer. Using AI can unlock huge opportunity for brands and provide better experiences for audiences. In a world of constant disruption and data proliferation, AI might well prove to be a key differentiator in effective customer communications across industries.

 

Thomas Prommer, Managing Director, of Technology at Huge, on the promise of AI and how “great power comes with great responsibility.”

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The promise I see lies within the very definition of how we identify AI technology and platforms. While academia, the industry, and media have used the term AI with varying degrees of interpretation, we classify technology as AI when it has an ability to learn and continuously evolve an "artificial intelligence" that would not be able to be developed purely through human cognitive capabilities. That hypothesis should hold true independent if one puts one human or thousand humans behind the task. In other words, AI technologies allow us to apply a degree of intelligent behavior to problems that is not accessible through purely the human mind even at scale. In the context of brands and marketers, there is a wide range of impactful promise: one example of the application of AI is to have a system learn a sophisticated multi-dimensional pricing strategy for an e-commerce website in a purely unsupervised manner. Dimensions could include time of day, location of the user, and the device they are shopping with, which would impact the product price based on the continuously measured probability of conversion. Another example includes an organization being able to recognize their products automatically in the big data context of user-generated social channels such as Instagram or Pinterest through vision-processing technologies mapped with learning algorithms. Lastly, an AI application we are particularly excited about at Huge is Anticipatory Design; predicting user behavior on an individual basis on their past interactions with a digital product and known preferences has great potential to further streamline user experiences and delight the user by making their lives easier through predictive user modeling. As an example to the contrary, developing a chatbot application on Facebook should not be considered the application of Artificial intelligence. While it requires the use of natural language techniques and can create a significant scale of operational efficiency, an actual human being is expected to still be better at communicating with a customer.

 

Chris Gorell Barnes, CEO & Founder at content agency Adjust Your Set, on the huge role AI will have in marketing going forward.

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Like it or not, AI will have a huge role in marketing. As demonstrated by Cosabella’s use of AI to triple ROI and increase its customer base by 30%, AI will be particularly useful when it comes to driving the performance element of content marketing. The common knee-jerk reaction is to misinterpret this as robots taking creative control. But there’s an optimal human/robot synergy where humans lead on the core creative idea and AI uses its analytical superpowers to transform consumer data into razor-sharp targeting strategies. This synergy creates a situation where the overall editorial thought is still very much in place, but it’s tailored to each consumer’s individual preferences. So rather than killing human creativity, AI will help augment creative into something that has pinpoint accuracy when it comes personalisation. This isn’t just a win for the brand that wants to reach a particular type of consumer in an agile way. It’s also a bonus for those on the receiving end. They will get messaging that’s able to draw on data – everything from a person’s Facebook likes through to realtime weather updates – to create content that’s so much more relevant and, therefore, so much more appreciated. Content marketing becomes an even more powerful medium when it’s developed at speed. AI’s lightning fast processing gives us this much-needed speed. So, providing a brand’s purpose and humanity remain fundamental to the core creative idea, AI – in the context of content marketing, at least – can only be a good thing.

 

Neill Horie, Head of Artificial Intelligence Optimisation at The Home Agency, on what AI means to different people and its true power.

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AI means different things to so many people. Typically, they think of it as Skynet from Terminator – something far away, very techy and definitely removed from their daily life. Without people realising it, though, weak AI has already become prevalent throughout our daily life. At a very basic level, search engines which we take for granted (like Google), have arguably been AI for some time now. The difference now is the scale of its capabilities – like the difference between data and Big Data. It’s the same kind of shift when you realise that, suddenly, our iPads are more advanced than its equivalent in Star Trek. The true power of AI is the ability to bring immense processing right to the user, in a friendly way. If you consider intelligence as being able to learn and apply skills and knowledge, it’s not hard to see why Alexa and Google seem to fit the bill – even in their current state. On top of that, the behind-the-scenes power of this is similarly overwhelming, as it can work out trends and patterns amongst people like never before, like using Twitter to predict Norovirus. The immediate risks of that are many-fold though. Using AI assistants and the like requires relinquishing some control, potentially allowing for expensive mistakes if they do the wrong thing and​ the amount of data available allows for social manipulation to an unprecedented scale, as can be seen with the use of social data in elections. We are already exceeding some (dated) sci-fi, without much consideration of how this could affect our society. Even without thinking of truly sentient AI, we could be on the brink of a social change greater than anything seen in our lifetimes.

 

Stephen Upstone, Founder and CEO at LoopMe, on why we shouldn't be afraid of AI and how it can close the feedback loop.

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Vast amounts of data are now on offer to marketers, but the only way to make sense of that data, and use it correctly is to employ artificial intelligence. AI can distinguish links, correlating and contributing factors and exceptions to an extent that is utterly impossible for the human brain, and it can do that in under 5 milliseconds. AI gives us the opportunity to close the feedback loop, to take feedback directly from users (if they chose to watch an advert or not for example) and use that feedback to instantly improve advertising for future users. For example, a brand could run two types of creative, one funny and one sad. AI can be used to deliver each creative to the people who are most likely to be responsive, going far beyond their age or gender, but based on their unique preferences as an individual. By using artificial intelligence on a recent campaign, the completion rate of a native video ad rose from around 15% to 67%, simply by showing the ad to users who were most likely to engage – there is no other technology capable of improving advertising to this extent. The use of artificial intelligence will transform the industry, it is already happening from a delivery and data analytics perspective. However, we shouldn’t be afraid to use AI in marketing, it does not replace people, instead it enhances them. For example, AI allows ad ops professionals to spend less time on manual optimization and more time building out insights and adding value to a client. For creative teams it can deliver data on what their audience responds to, providing a brief that is accurate and comprehensive and based on fact, not assumption. Artificial intelligence will remove layers of manual work and leave people freer to do the creative and relationship-building work humans excel at.

 

Karl O’Doherty, Senior Account Manager at Ketchum London, on how worries concerning AI are justified, and how human creativity wil save us.

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There are legitimate and worrisome concerns that an AI powered system will tear apart the professional communication industry. The technology is impressive, opaque for a large percentage of onlookers and an AI system’s power to think, reason and execute with near autonomy (once instructed) is a real threat to many parts of a marcomms job. However, the crucial element to what makes a human good at their job in a creative or communicative profession is creativity at any magnitude, and it’s the application of that creativity to redefine our own jobs that will ultimately save us. Forget the threat an AI can have to junior staff’s hours compiling lists and coverage books, leave that to the machine and harness their creativity and (in most cases) youth for a project and client’s benefit (and investing time in actually getting to know the media, weaning our industry off lists and databases). Utilise the power of parsing thousands of pieces of text, hours of video and other content to pull out defining themes and create something that becomes truly representative of what you are communicating (as an example, have a look at how IBM used its Watson system to create a Gaudi inspired sculpture for a conference in Barcelona). AI is a threat to some elements of the job, yes. However, shifting our viewpoint from seeing it as a threat to seeing it as a tool, and harnessing its power as an aid to creativity and insight is the simple key to working with this complex technology.

 

Trevor Hardy, CEO at The Future Laboratory, on his overwhelming support for AI.

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As AI and devices develop and begin to actively take over the running of households, they will increasingly be responsible for purchasing decisions. Marketers will have to learn what metrics make certain undifferentiated products appealing not only to consumers, but also to their artificially intelligent helpers. I overwhelmingly support the use of, and experimentation with, AI in marketing and advertising, as this is the only choice we have. Whether you think it should or shouldn’t be used, it’s inevitable that it will be. When it’s applications become more mainstream we will most certainly have a more complex lexicon to describe it but, in the short-term, we need to ensure that AI is positive for business, as well as consumers and the building of trust. We must also focus attention on making sure that tech innovation is a force for good; making a better future for man+machine, rather than diluting our humanity.

 

Richard Southon, Managing Director of Communicator on his perspective on the immediate future of AI.

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Technology is developing at an inhuman speed, creating a future marketplace that will be automated, disruptive, and highly personalised. But as the world becomes increasingly automated, marketers must ensure that the human specialty of creativity and connection is not compromised. Whether it’s machines learning, disrupting the design and delivery of creative content, or brands investing in chatbots to speed up efficiency and service ratings, advanced technology is shifting consumer expectations and how we live our lives on a daily basis. In this landscape, it is all too easy to focus on technology for technology’s sake. AI can certainly be a valuable asset to personalisation, but the recent Google scandal that saw ads from major brands misplaced within extremist content is just one example of why human rationality and sensibility still matters. Last week Facebook reported that it is pulling back from chatbots for brands as they’ve reported a 70% failure rate. There is significant risk of mechanised mistakes when relying on technology that cannot think and feel like us. We believe that smart brands of the future can meet enhanced consumer expectations by creating a highly individual brand personality that can interact with the consumer on a human level. Marketers need to go far beyond selling a simple product or even a lifestyle. Instead, they need to make emotional, human connections with their customers.

 

Tink Taylor, the founder & president of dotmailer on the revolutionary potential of AI.

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AI can revolutionise the way in which a business manages its customer relations, and provide quicker, insight based instant communication. But the majority of businesses are simply not equipped to start even contemplating how to use it as they first need to get their basic marketing processes working better. Whilst not wishing to dampen marketers’ enthusiasm and creative energy for all things new and shiny, our message is simple: Take stock of your current marketing methods and get the basics right first. Many large organisations, such as Google with their RankBrain system which processes search queries, have successfully implemented AI to benefit their customers and make life better. They’ve also worked out, better than most businesses, what their customers want, when and how. The challenge for smaller businesses with more limited resources is to focus on their priorities, and review just how brilliantly they are performing in the eyes of their customers before innovating with new toys such as AI.

 

Dan Taylor, head of systems at Fletchers Solicitors, the UK’s leading medical negligence and serious injury law firm, on how AI is affecting the legal sector.

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There is one question that keeps cropping up – will the ‘rise of machines’ spell the end for the human lawyer by making them “roadkill on the information superhighway”? The simple answer is no. Rather than replacing traditional lawyers, it’s highly likely that AI will be used to support and assist them, automating time-consuming data research and suggesting relevant case law and statute. In the future, these systems may well be able to suggest potential judgments based upon automated legal reasoning tasks and provide options for advice on a particular client matter, but that is quite some way off. In the meantime, the human element and legal expertise provided by a lawyer is unlikely to be replaced by a machine. It’s likely innovation will spread throughout the legal sector at an astounding rate, with AI rapidly becoming the solution to greater efficiency and quality of service. Now’s the time to get on board, we can’t afford to ignore the changing marketplace and continue with ‘business as usual’. We must move with the times or risk being left behind.

 

Dr Anton Grashion, Managing Director of security practice at Cylance, on AI and virus protection.

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Conventional virus protection relies on a couple of things that actually mitigates against being effective against today’s increasingly complex threat landscape. Firstly, it relies on there being a patient zero – to write a signature for malware traditional AV needs to have already seen it. Secondly it relies of human experts – slowing down the response to new attacks. Compare that to an AI approach (note – not just machine learning) and by determining what malware’s DNA looks like we can confidently predict not only today’s malware but tomorrow’s and next year’s etc etc. Machines don’t forget, don’t rely of having seen a particular variant before and can be operated even with no connection to the internet. No massive signature files need to be pushed on to the endpoint and the liberation of system resources can make you feel like you have a new machine. Potential drawbacks? Not compared to the losing battle that traditional AV is facing as you are always behind the execution of new malware.

 

Simon Peck, Managing Director at Engine UK, on the AI explosion.

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The use of Artificial Intelligence has exploded over the past year. To the end consumer this may not even be obvious – but that’s the beauty of AI. It works behind the scenes to make ads even more impactful and engaging. AI is no longer the realm of science fiction. An increasing amount of data is collected and processed, machine learning can be used to identify patterns in our data and make predictions and recommendations. This has huge potential for those targeting millennial consumers who increasingly want personalised brand experiences. From Siri to Alexa, voice and visual search are giving brands a new way to interact with their customers. Brands need to move towards this kind of AI driven interaction to match consumer behavior and expectations. Marketing is one of the areas where AI can have the biggest impact, as ads, social media and other marketing content are the real touchpoints between brands and consumers. Better, more targeted and intelligent marketing is never a bad thing.

 

Giovanni Strocchi, CEO at ADmantX, on and upsides and downsides of AI  and programmatic advertising.

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The first and most important element of AI within digital advertising and marketing is how the technology can empower the first-party data owned by brands. Learning from real-time customer interactions, marketers are able to use AI to filter through rich first-party data sources to build advanced audience profiles. The online customer behaviour extracted from online communications acts as the initial basis for this, and enables 360 degree and propensity profiles to analyse and predict customers’ needs and behaviour. The old marketing approach of using static clusters of customers is being substituted with propensity models belonging to the brand to drive real-time marketing activities and interaction. After initial investment in basic ‘big data technologies’ such as DMPs, brands will increasingly invest in AI modelling and profiling for their campaigns. Many may fear that advanced AI will eventually lead to robotics taking over the workplace - but with all technology, the human touch remains paramount. Technology exists to complement human processes  - it is only through a holistic approach, and the combination of technological and human systems, that the full benefits of Artificial Intelligence can be realised within the digital ecosystem. 

 

Carl Erik Kjærsgaard, Co-Founder of Blackwood Seven, on the impossible things AI allows us to achieve.

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A media plan can require up to 5,000 decisions to be made in order for it to be fully optimised. When such decisions are left to humans, they face a near impossible task. Often the decisions that are made are not impartial and consequently they do not deliver optimum results. AI eradicates this. Algorithms can take over the heavy lifting in media planning and do so without bias, acting with ruthless neutrality and efficiency. These are behaviours media agencies often struggle with, despite it being of the utmost benefit to clients. Along with supporting media planning, AI is an extra brain in the room that sparks creative genius. People will still hold the reins, anticipating the zeitgeist and adding that extra layer of individuality that takes campaigns from great to ground-breaking. However, by combining both creativity and machine learning capabilities, we can execute event better campaigns that accurately target key audiences.

Benjamin Hiorns is a freelance writer and struggling musician from Kidderminster in the UK. For more on AI, check out our recent insight into How AI is Changing the Fashion Industry and the Creative Opinions on AI companion pieces; Tech Trends: AI in 2017. and AI Interviews: The Good, The Bad & The Creative.

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