“How are we doing with AI, as marketers?” I went to the Frankwatching AI Marcom Event with this question. The situation is quite urgent: I don’t know about you, but my customers now expect me to review and correct AI-generated content and to implement strategies written by ChatGPT. Or they don’t call me at all anymore, because they replaced me with AI. What now?
In the opening keynote of AI Marcom Event emphasized Patrick Clerks immediately that we have to work with AI differently. From single, individual AI use – the well-known AI chats in which we still often lose ourselves – to ‘swarms’ of AIs that take over entire business processes. His example was striking: journalists sending interviews to an AI that gives the transcription to another AI, so that the journalists find a first version of the article in their mailbox when they return to their desk after the interview.
This seems like the right way forward to me, because it helps us humans use our time for thinking and conversations and leave the typing to AI.
Accelerate execution, but keep thinking
The workshop of Matthijs Mentinklater in the day, about creating a social media strategy with ChatGPT, illustrated that. Mentink showed that AI does not change the principles of a social media strategy, but does accelerate its implementation. Or, as he put it: “A social media strategy in 80 minutes? Actually it’s not possible, but we do it anyway.” And it worked. With plenty of time to spare.
AI and ethics in marketing: complicated
Then the hot topic: the ethics of AI. Aaron Mirck highlighted many facets of this. And through his repeated use of the word ‘complicated’, he admitted that we cannot conclusively answer many questions in this area.
Reassuring: your job will not disappear due to AI. As with other technological developments, we ultimately only get more work. But what what we do does change drastically (that was the central theme of the day anyway).
Photographer: MichielTon.com
Another interesting point: Mirck warned against ‘anthropomorphism’. Treating AI tools like humans. He emphasized that we are dealing with statistical algorithms, often maintained by poorly paid real people. So we need to think critically about how, when and why we use them and, above all, not get lost in mindless AI chatter. He calls that:
Smart technology, smart users
So occasionally ask the question ‘do I need AI for this?’ And don’t ‘do something with AI’, but first think about what you want to achieve. And wherever possible, find more efficient, ethical and environmentally friendly ways to use AI.
European legislation?
European legislation may seem far away, but it can have a major impact (remember the fun we had with the GDPR?). The EU is leading the way in tackling AI risks, and major consultancy firms are already advising companies on how to deal with them. In a few years you will see these advice reflected in the strategies of the most important Dutch companies. That’s why I joined the session Bernadette Wesdorp from EY.
She gave many useful tips, but the overarching conclusion remained: much is still unknown. No one knows exactly where we are going with AI, and the AI Act itself is still in development. But you don’t have to limit yourself to ‘abiding by the law’. As a company, feel free to apply ethical standards to AI use, for example in the field of CO2 emissions and when choosing who you do and do not want to collaborate with.
The importance of human creativity
Funny enough, he stepped Vincent Mirck (no relation) in his keynote on creativity, he fell into Aaron Mirck’s anthropomorphism trap when he asked several AI models what people are jealous of. “Creativity,” was the answer.
Kind of crazy, because that’s what people have written about it, and where the learning set of those models is therefore full of it. Fits perfectly into the list of biases that ensure that AI usually shows a ‘director’ as an older man and a ‘woman’ always gives snow-white teeth, a slim figure and neatly made eyes.
Where Vincent hit the nail on the head was his message around creativity. “Don’t leave too much of your creativity to devices,” was his advice. Be open to inspiration. Combine things that don’t really belong together, because that’s how new things are created. Play and experiment. Because ultimately it is the imagination that inspires science and technology to do new things.
Words to live bybut of course that has always been the case. Because even without AI, life was already full of creativity killers and keeping things alive was a challenge creative spark already an important (and difficult) task for the marketer.
Photographer: MichielTon.com
Just like applying common sense when it comes to ethics and thinking from the target group’s perspective, this is something that may become more complex, but does not fundamentally change. What does change? How we work together. How we create strategies. How we create content. How we assess content… So almost everything. And that’s a pretty intimidating prospect, even for a tech geek like me.
Practical work on content creation
Time for something more cheerful. The session of Kim Pot about rating content with ChatGPT, for example. She demonstrated how AI can take boring, repetitive work out of our processes, allowing us to be more effective and creative. Kim showed how you can have AI score a text on various criteria on a scale of 1-5, with tips for improvement.
The highlight is a live demonstration of building a custom GPT. It illustrated not only the possibilities of AI, but also the fearlessness required to experiment with it.
Photographer: MichielTon.com
Learn together, stay human together
In addition to substantive sessions, such an event naturally mainly consists of coffee and drinks. And there too it was often about AI, but just as often about our children, job satisfaction, work-life balance, creativity, and the search for personal satisfaction. The things, in short, that make us human.
Why do I mention that? Because I suspect that’s the main reason people come to events. To exchange ideas and make connections with other people. And when it comes to this topic, that is more important than factual answers to factual questions. Of course it’s nice to be practical tips & tricks and there were plenty of them, but it also became clear that many answers are not yet available and that everyone is therefore looking for where to start or the next step.
Photographer: MichielTon.com
As Matthijs Mentink and I concluded together: even if you work with AI all day, you still know very little. There is so much to learn and discover that you need your colleagues to exchange knowledge and ideas with. That is exactly what happened on this day, as the speakers also joined each other’s sessions, asked questions and shared experiences.
The answer to the question is: see you next year
And, although you know in advance that you will chuckle in embarrassment at some of the things we discussed (take it from someone who once organized an evening on the theme “What can we as software developers do with the Internet?”), you know also: this was an important event. Precisely because all the knowledge presented will be outdated in a year. And because we then come together again, as people, to share what we learned during that year.
See you next year.
Source: www.frankwatching.com
