Artificial Intelligence (AI) has begun to and will in the near future completely change the way we market and advertise, serve customers, and transact business. Businesses can now tailor their marketing communications, provide pro-active support, integrate and autofill data tasks, and streamline the sales process thanks to the growth of AI solutions in these domains.
In a world where AI is becoming increasingly sophisticated and personalized, its use case in advertising is beginning to emerge and will continue to be more prevalent. In the future at scale companies and advertisers will be able to use the power of AI to psychologically profile individuals, create customized campaigns, and trigger positive emotions. It absolutely crucial to consider the potential consequences of such practices on consumer privacy, autonomy, and overall well-being. This raises the question of how can we harness the benefits of AI-driven advertising without crossing ethical boundaries?
In recent years there have been massive changes in policies in what data advertisers could leverage in their campaigns and businesses are still trying to figure out how to overcome that shift. Innovation is always a staple of business, however, Rising CAC costs across the board in all industries, tech a consistent battle for daily active users and attention with the over saturation of choices, NLPs like GPT, and the newest wave of API integrations and data research within platforms (Notion and Microsofts Copilot) – there is a demand for solutions to increase the conversions to match the cost of leads and acquisition. This vacuum of economies is fueling the rush for AI adoption and innovation.
IMAGE GENERATED BY MIDJOURNEY
Created from the prompt in Midjourney 5, “A male in his mid-30s looking down into and opening Pandora’s box on his standing desk at night time. The box is in the front foreground. He is standing looking down into the box directly behind the box. and the cityscape is behind him in the windows. He looks happy and excited. It is glowing green.
To compete companies of all sizes must become a brand and media company. A tectonic shift like this hasn’t happened since the rise of SEO and Google Adwords for marketers and advertisers. What we called in the early stages of Web 2.0 as “Traditional” forms of media: the newspaper, the radio, the magazine, and television – became in that order less relevant as the rise of personal devices gave a more tailored advertising experience. That cycle will repeat itself again. These digital channels and strategies of advertising have themselves now become the “Traditional” requirements for awareness and acquisition.
In order to increase client engagement and scalable conversions, AI-powered technology could become the scalable solution for these SMBs that can’t mass produce media to generate leads and credibility on content platforms that more established brands can, or massive VC backed companies are able to create. Those who did not participate, or are emerging, missed the boat on cheap impressions and being able to buy followers for pennies. They will instead need lean into scalable cheaper solutions like AI to produce relatively high-quality content strategies to gain presence on platforms with: Hyper-realistic photos, that will then be customized into visual and audio avatars, programed NLP and machine learning databases that will interact with customers, and creating well scripted content videos. The speed and procession of these campaigns will be provided to all with the assistance of specialized “prompt engineers”, “integrators”, “data specialists”, and “sales playbook strategists”.
Am I saying AI is ready to take on this mantle now 100%? No, but as we have seen the iterations of AI and platforms evolve as it has since the public has had access to this technology we can speculate that its ability to replace, augment, and enhance the labor of high quality creative media at speed is not far.
In order to increase client engagement, AI-powered technology will be the scalable solution for these SMBs that can’t mass produce media to generate leads and credibility on content platforms.
Take for example the newly released Midjourney 5 which has taken things to a completely different level when it comes to creating passible human-like expressions and faces with intense hyperrealistic detail with results that make it nearly impossible to discern reality from fiction. This update seems to have broken the barrier on the illustration of human eyes, which until recently, has been very difficult to AI image generation to look “alive”.
Nearly all brands at their minimum will have amazing visual content, targeted messaging that has expert level strategy prior reserved for those who could afford it, strong copywriting to convert, matching brand elements to their markets, and well targeted marketing campaigns. The differentiator will be in their customer experience, video assets, and their AI avatars. Brand becomes about speed, precession, and appeal to biases that we are not consciously aware of, nor can control. Even after years of well targeted and optimized advertising, product placement, and content marketing – there is no circumvent that will remove the trigger loops in the human mind which could be exercised towards driving “positive” to goal events for future advertising campaigns and marketing strategies. AI is already aware of these psychological loopholes and how to exploit them. It can be deducted that these conditions and attributes that AI possesses will be used for that knowledge in real-time to optimize message positioning and likeness at a personalized level – appealing to subtleties that liken itself to subliminal, or some could say borderline unethical, tactics. Putting each person in their own customized bubble with a set of avatar like “brand buddies” that tailor the perfect frictionless experience.
AI is already aware of these psychological loopholes and how to exploit them. It can potentially be used for that knowledge in real-time to optimize message positioning and likeness at a personalized level..."
NOT A REAL PERSON GENERATED BY AI
Created from the prompt in Midjourney 5, “a woman in her mid-twenties with light beams in the background staring at the camera.”
Combined with cloneable avatar technologies like Synthesia and vocal technologies like Descript – the spokesperson of the future will be matched and tailor-made to the target in ways we view today as highly manipulative and potentially discriminatory. Even GPT in several threads when discussing this topic has its researched concerns on this topic.
Avatars are unquestionably not only one of the first strategic tactics to emerge with this technology, but in the future, they will be as accepted and standardized as targeted ad copy.
NOT A REAL PERSON GENERATED BY AI
“an intelligent trustworthy friendly-faced man in his mid-twenties as an AI avatar speaking into a Zoom meeting camera in a home office with the city of San Francisco as his background. Realistic. 4K. Colorful.”
In the future, this practice will be as accepted and standardized as targeted ad copy."
I asked it the question, “How can we ethically address the concerns arising from the use of AI avatars and AI-driven personalized advertising, particularly when these technologies are designed to profile humans psychologically, trigger positive emotions, and potentially increase purchasing behavior?”.
GPT’s response was a list that demonstrates the potential ramifications that could have effects more exponential than what we saw with targeted advertising and decision making processes:
- Privacy and data protection: AI-powered systems often require massive amounts of personal data to create profiles and personalized experiences. This raises concerns about the collection, storage, and usage of personal data, as well as potential breaches of privacy. Ensuring transparency about data usage and respecting privacy laws is essential in addressing these concerns.
- Manipulation and exploitation: Using AI to create personalized advertisements and avatars that trigger positive emotions could be seen as manipulative, as it can exploit individuals’ psychological vulnerabilities to drive sales. Some argue that this is a form of persuasive technology, which can have negative implications if used unethically or without consent.
- Bias and discrimination: AI systems can sometimes perpetuate or even exacerbate existing biases present in the data used to train them. This could lead to targeted advertising campaigns that unintentionally discriminate against certain groups or individuals based on factors such as race, gender, or socioeconomic status.
- Autonomy and freedom of choice: Some critics argue that AI-driven personalization may undermine individuals’ autonomy and freedom of choice, as it can create a “filter bubble” effect that narrows their exposure to diverse information, ideas, and products.
- Mental well-being: The use of AI avatars to trigger positive emotions could potentially have negative impacts on people’s mental health, particularly if they become reliant on AI-generated interactions for emotional support. This could lead to issues such as addiction or an unhealthy dependence on AI-generated content.
While this is all interesting to think about, how do we actually address these ethical concerns? For starters, we may or may not see implementation of guidelines and regulations that promote responsible AI development and deployment. This the essence of the debate happening between “Elon Musk’s camp” of those wanting to slow down the development of AI and AGI, and the current paradigm, namely from Open AI.
There is a call for the establishment of industry-wide standards, public-private partnerships, and government oversight to ensure that AI applications are used in a way that respects individual rights, economic impacts, and humanity’s well-being.
As the industry continues to embrace AI and personalized advertising, it’s essential to maintain a critical and vigilant approach to the ethical challenges it will present. To take a realistic point of view, I believe the regulations may come too far into the process to be impactful and that there is an opportunity for advertisers to create something that representations something we have never seen before – a true personification in body, mind, and “condition” of a brand which represents the company without incident and with infinite potential at minimal cost.
