The advertising industry is gathering resources to meet the “tectonic shift” from AI, ensuring it becomes a tool for growth and not a deceptive false path.
RESET, the Australian Association of National Advertisers (AANA) annual conference, put AI’s role in the spotlight.
The AANA, the Media Federation of Australia (MFA) and the Advertising Council of Australia (ACA) are forming the AI Council of Experts, bringing together leaders from brands, agencies, creative and media.
The idea is to develop a set of national standards and guidelines for the responsible, ethical, effective, and innovative use of artificial intelligence in marketing, informed by best practice from around the world.
Futurist Dr Catherine Ball, speaking at RESET, likened the rise of AI as passing dead bodies, frozen on the slopes of Everest, a dead zone for climbers.
“Never trust a man who smiles too much … like I don't trust an AI if it blows smoke up my backside,” she said
“This is how I feel about AI at the moment. How many dead bodies are we going to count before we actually recognise this? It ain't quite right.
“We need to get back to a normal level of oxygen around how we're looking and using new technologies.
“This thing is no God. It's not actually that intelligent, and it's certainly not artificial artificial intelligence.”
The phrase came from professors, acknowledging that most found mathematics boring, who needed a term to attract government funding.
“Artificial intelligence sounds much more sexy and devious than advanced mathematical assimilation marketing," she said.
“AI can help you make decisions and do things, but it's not necessarily going to bring you value. It's not necessarily going to be worth your time. It's not necessarily going to improve things.
“What I'm really interested in is where AI is actually going to go in the next 10 years, and you have to think of AI as an ecosystem of technologies.
“We are going to be shocked back in to using AI to do things that AI should be used for … the robotic, the automation pieces.
“But the creativity and the brand persona and the brand value of who you're working for or with, that is going to be your magic source, the ability to use AI where it needs to be used, and keep the human creative where it needs to be … human.”
Josh Faulks, CEO of the AANA, acknowledge the hype around about AI.
“The great disrupter of our time. Bigger than the internet, Bigger than mobile phone and bigger than the invention of electricity," he told the RESET audience.
“But as we all know, it can do so much more, and we are in the middle of a tectonic shift for our industry.”
He outlined trends for AI marketers need to pay attention to.
“AI will fundamentally shift how consumers, stream, search and shop,” he said.
“ChatGPT will take over Google search in 4 years. Many say this will happen earlier.
“The key insight here is consumers are already and increasingly using AI to search. AI Agents – marketing’s middlemen. Many have proclaimed 2025 to be the year of AI agents. “This figure kindly shared by our friends at Salesforce says that 1 in 4 consumers are already using AI agents to buy stuff. “
Another trend is that AI is already revolutionising how we develop content.
“The point here is that AI generated content is 62% faster, 55% cheaper and 40% better.”
And AI will reshape the client-agency relationship
Sam Altman, CEO, Open AI: “AI will handle 95% of what marketers use agencies, strategists and creative professionals for today.”
Faulks said Altman is being deliberately provocative.
“It is self-serving and obviously marketing for his product. But we need to have the conversation.”
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