First, check the above video demonstration below:
Cheers for that mate.
As you can see, the technology is not perfect… yet. Considering what this demonstration would have cost in video and audio production alone compared to the $100 and one hour I gave myself, the output is impressive.
Needless to say, AI is here and disruption will be felt across nearly every industry, especially in the professional and creative service industries. Today we’re going to talk about the state of the AI landscape through the lens of the tools that are most relevant to the communications specialists in this room.
It is fair to assume to AI is going to perform a lot of time-consuming tasks for you including:
- Copywriting
- Presentation creation
- Photo and video production
- Graphic design
…to name but a few.
In the (near) future, I believe there will be two types of people.
1) Those who get replaced by AI
2) Those who successfully learn how to use these AI tools effectively
…hopefully, we are all in the latter group.
To show the sheer size of the AI boom, this slide gives a snapshot of the AI startups in Israel alone across the last 12 months. There are literally hundreds of new platforms, built on various AI technologies, starting up every month.
Even though I just demonstrated several new AI platforms that can do some pretty cool things, I want one of the main takeaways from today to be: You don’t need to trawl the internet to find these platforms (there are literally 100s of new websites emerging every week, each with new and exciting applications of AI).
The big tech companies are investing billions of dollars into AI so the platforms you already use and are familiar with will figure this all out for you, for a price of course.
Today I want to briefly outline what Microsoft, Meta & Adobe have planned for the next 12 months.
Microsoft is arguably set to win the AI arms race given its intimate relationship with OpenAI, creator of ChatGPT – the fastest-growing consumer application in history.
I’ll say that again – the fastest-growing consumer product in history acquiring 100 million monthly active users in 2 months. For comparison, to achieve this milestone it took TikTok 9 months, Instagram 30 months and Uber 70 months.
The company has already invested $10 billion USD into OpenAI with another $1 billion pledged for this financial year.
Microsoft has managed to get the jump on all of the other big tech companies, having already integrated AI into their suite of products such as:
– AI search responses in the Bing Search Engine
– AI code writer and debugger in the software development platform, GitHub, to make coding accessible to all users regardless of dev capabilities.
– Most importantly to this room, Microsoft 365 CoPilot is embedded into Word, Outlook, Excel, PowerPoint, Teams and more, making it a companion that works alongside users in apps they already use every day.
Right now, you can utilise Microsoft CoPilot to assist with copywriting, analyse data or write Excel formulas or summarise your unread emails without leaving the professional tools you likely already have installed on your device.
Meta, the holding company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, is investing $33 billion USD in AI technologies this year. You can expect to start seeing
- AI “agents” for WhatsApp and Messenger. These are chatbots that can have conversations with users and help them with tasks or queries
- Generative AI photo editing on Instagram & Facebook. This would allow users to edit their photos using text commands and then share them on their Stories
- AI Ad tools in Meta Business Manager such as ‘Advatge+’ and ‘AI Sandbox’ which can generate text variations, background generation and image outcropping not to mention performance optimisation
As you can see above, Meta are already assisting in creating multiple ad verations in respects to copy, imagery and structure which will then be automatically optimised and split tested.
Adobe has announced its first foray into the AI space with its product Firefly. Firefly and Generative Fill currently allow text to visual prompts that can quickly add, remove, or extend content within design, images and videos.
Businesses can also build Firefly into their own ecosystem by training the AI model with their own branded company assets, which will allow Firefly to replicate the brand’s style when generating images and copy.
The Midjourney competitor has generated over 1 billion images in the 3 months since conception and is currently being rolled out across both graphic design and video editing programs.
As you can see above, users can now manipulate colour, grading and editing using text prompts for video and photography within the likes of Photoshop and Premier Pro.
So it all seems pretty doom and gloom for us mere humans, right?
It’s fair to assume that the big tech platforms will figure out the AI integrations that you will need to supercharge your profession. With the click of a button, you can turn an idea into a high-quality creative execution and distribute it across the internet.
Publishers will be able to create 10s of thousands of articles per minute that will be automatically created into ai-generated avatar videos including stock footage and amplify via social media.
Digital advertisers will be to able to create millions of ads in seconds each with endless image, video, caption, headline permutations and targeting options that are automatically optimised to create the best cost per conversion for clients.
But what will become important in a digital sea of endless ai generated content? What will be the role of humans in the digital communications world?
In a world that will be saturated in AI-generated content, meaningful human output that connects will be the premium output.
The core purpose of the communications industry is to evoke connection and emotion between humans, not robots or computer programs. We will never be more perfect than an AI program but to be human is to be imperfect. It’s our flaws, mistakes and ideas that make us human.
But what does it mean to be human? We are imperfect, messy, emotional, reactive, irrational, vulnerable, sometimes empathetic… and all together a little bit crazy.
But that’s what makes us beautiful.
We’re putting our money where our mouth is at Social Meteor & Perth is OK! and leading into the ‘Human As A Premium’ concept. This can be seen through:
– Incorporating first-hand stories and personal opinions in articles written by real locals
– Utilising slang, emojis and relevant lingo for social audiences
– Preferring less polished photos and videos that look like they’ve been created by a human
– Leaning into “lo-fi” iPhone shot and edited video featuring real people in paid social and organic posts
– Going “all in” on TikTok, Instagram Reels & YouTube Shorts
In short, we’re endeavouring to create connection, for humans by humans, through digital platforms.
Links and references:
https://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/what-are-biggest-names-tech-doing-ai
https://me.mashable.com/tech/29045/mark-zuckerberg-reveals-metas-ambitious-generative-ai-roadmap