David Searns | Co-CEO
I've seen the future. And I'm excited!
And maybe a bit terrified…let me explain.
A few weeks ago, I had the privilege of attending MAICON, the Marketing AI Conference in Cleveland.
This was my second time at MAICON. The first time was an AI eye-opener. This one was a jaw-dropper.
Here are a few highlights of the conference (brought to you by ChatGPT, of course):
- Scaling AI Beyond Experiments: Many companies are stuck in the early phases of AI adoption, using AI for one-off tasks like automating emails or generating reports. To unlock AI's full potential, organizations need to focus on developing a holistic strategy that incorporates AI into more complex processes.
- AI Literacy Is Crucial: A significant portion of marketing teams lack formal AI education, which leads to inefficient and fragmented AI use. Marketers need to upskill through formal training and certifications to fosters a more strategic application of AI tools.
- The Role of Data: Several speakers emphasized conducting a thorough data audit before diving into AI projects, as poor data quality can hamper the effectiveness of AI tools.
- AI as a Strategic Tool: AI should be seen as a strategic business tool, not just a cool technology. For instance, Paul Roetzer encouraged businesses to focus on a few high-value AI projects, emphasizing that AI is meant to enhance human potential, not replace it.
- Personalization at Scale: Traditional customer segmentation is being challenged by AI's ability to offer near-infinite personalization allowing companies to tailor messages in real-time and provide a more personalized customer experience.
- Cultural Intelligence and Leadership Alignment: AI success isn't just about technology—it's about fostering the right organizational culture. Leaders need to support AI initiatives, communicate clearly and create environments where teams feel comfortable experimenting with AI.
My Biggest Lessons
For me, there were a few massive takeaways from the conference.
1) AI is not a tool. It is an assistant.
This is more of a mindset shift than anything else.
When I started to play with AI in early 2023, it was easy to see the potential of ChatGPT for ideation and content creation.
As the AI tools became more powerful and gained access to the web, I started seeing them as essential for research, productivity, training, and increasing the quality and depth of the content our team produces.
But I still viewed it as a tool, just like MS Word is a tool.
At MAICON, they emphasized that we need to think about AI not as a tool but as an assistant.
Your AI assistant won’t just write and analyze--it will be able to complete tasks…autonomously.
Thanks to enhanced contextual understanding, reasoning abilities, multi-modal capabilities, and integration with other systems, your AI assistant will be able to get a lot done.
Some of the predicted use cases include:
- Virtual customer service agents.
- Automated scheduling and calendar management.
- Email management...including autonomous responses.
- Patient monitoring in healthcare.
- Optimized media generation (emails, ads, videos, blogs, etc.).
- Automated reporting and analysis.
- Personalized education.
- Recruitment automation (sourcing, talent assessment).
- HR management (onboarding, benefits administration).
- Personal financial assistants to help you manage your money.
- Travel agent services (planning trips, booking flights and hotels).
According to some of the leading-edge thinkers at MAICON, within a year or two, we will all be working with at least one, if not many, AI assistants to help us do our work.
If you want a great overview of this concept (and the fundamentals of how AI works), check out this video: Generative AI in a Nutshell - how to survive and thrive in the age of AI
2) AI is becoming indistinguishable from humans.
Today, it's pretty easy to spot AI writing. AI video is even easier.
Or so I thought.
At MAICON, keynote speaker Andrew Davis presented a talk on "Digital Doppelgangers."
The highlight of the presentation was Andrew’s real-time chat with his digital twin…Drewdini! ( See Drewdini here)
Now in this video, it's easy to tell that Drewdini is an AI avatar.
But Andrew showed us how he works with Drewdini. How he trained his twin with powerful GPTs that replicate many of the daily tasks Andrew would complete as a marketer.
Then he showed us how Drewdini generates finished work—that is virtually impossible to differentiate from Andrew's real content.
As marketers, we can create our own digital twins to accelerate our work.
We can also use it to generate synthetic content…for anyone…in any media format.
Need your CEO to be a thought leader, but she doesn't have the time?
Create a digital twin and a podcast with your digital twin's voice.
By the way, we're already doing this! Check out the 6-part book review on the BARQAR Bites podcast – it's all AI-generated!
3) We (the humans) need to reskill and upskill…FAST!
This was my biggest takeaway. And my biggest worry.
The integration of AI into our daily lives is occurring at a mind-numbing pace.
Never in the history of humankind has technology evolved so rapidly.
On the plus side, our AI assistants will make our lives MUCH better. They will help us do more, expand our skills, accelerate learning, and extend our capabilities and capacities.
But what happens to jobs?
This was a frequently asked question at MAICON.
And no one had an answer.
While the most frequent response was "AI won't take your job, but a human with AI will," I'm skeptical.
When the machines are capable of doing the work, doing it faster, doing it more accurately, doing it cheaper, and doing it on their own, what happens to humans?
Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not all gloom and doom about this.
Quite the contrary. I think there will be tremendous opportunities for people to elevate their roles and bring more humanity to the world.
But we cannot wait.
Right now, we need to get comfortable with AI.
We need to reframe our thinking to view AI as our digital assistant.
We must learn how to work with our assistant. How to speak to it. How to train it. How to make it our digital twin…or maybe how to create an army of digital twins to make us infinitely more productive.
At least two speakers at MAICON said that we are about to see the first billion-dollar company…that has just one employee—and an army of agents.
How about you?
What could you accomplish with an army of your digital twins?
So, what's stopping you from getting started today? |
