Generative AI has blasted on to the scene at breakneck speed and in a little over 6 months has already proved a gamechanger in the advertising industry. The rate at which it’s evolving means it will continue to penetrate at an exponential rate across every facet of advertising from the creative to the copy and the operations to the analytics.
By 2028, AI’s application in advertising is predicted to reach $107 billion worldwide. Yet, the pace at which generative AI is transforming the industry, has been a shock to some, with many fearing that AI will usurp staff from their seats by replacing jobs across the board. However, these fears are simply a lack of vision. On the contrary, increasing efficiencies through AI will benefit the entire advertising industry, creating immense opportunities for growth in ways we might not previously have imagined. That said, generative AI is not a technology that can be left to its own devices. At this stage, micro-management is imperative to avoid any brand reputational risk. But used correctly, it holds so much potential.
So, how exactly is generative AI enhancing advertising and what does the future hold for this highly progressive tech?
Amplifying campaign creatives in seconds
The most profound impact generative AI has made on advertising to date is through its streamlining of the creative process. No longer do designers have to spend hours reshaping creatives, as they have a wealth of tools at their fingertips that can create incredible images and videos with minimal direction. Products like Cutout and OpenArt allow designers to transform sketches into 3D images for instance, as well as amplify the number of creatives they can produce for a campaign. And because of the nature of AI, these tools can be trained to learn a brand’s likes and dislikes, so going forwards the images they produce will be ever more on point.
What’s more, generative AI allows campaign creatives to be optimised far more efficiently based on which images are performing best. This is a major advantage for brands, whose campaign success relies on the right ads being seen by the right audience.
Brand copywriters will work side-by-side with machines
In the same way that generative AI can produce images in seconds, so too can it produce copy. Like creatives, AI tools cannot be relied on to produce content without direction but conversational products like ChatGPT and Bard use AI and natural language processing (NLP) to generate multiple options of high-quality, personalised copy in seconds, provided the right briefing has been given. This saves copywriters hours coming up with ideas or creating various iterations of copy to appeal to different individuals.
Going forwards, the job of a copywriter is likely to evolve to being a human / robot hybrid role, where it’s the human copywriter’s responsibility to effectively brief the robot on producing copy. It takes a human copywriter to really understand what is needed for content to appeal to a particular audience and also understand the pain points the copy might be seeking to address. This is why the human touch will continue to be essential in copywriting and content marketing. Although working hand-in-hand with a machine means brands will be able to maximise the amount of content they put out, this content will also need to be edited by a human to ensure it’s SEO compliant and will effectively attract and engage audiences.
The ultimate ad campaign of the future
Meta and Google are both set to launch generative AI tools that can automatically create online advertising campaigns customised to particular users, taking advertising effectiveness to a whole new level. I believe we’re also just weeks away from generative AI being used in performance reporting and measurement. Indeed, Meta Advantage is in the process of rolling out performance comparison reports, which allow advertisers to measure and compare the performance of their campaigns, as well as enhanced audience targeting whereby its ad algorithm expands ad targeting beyond the defined audience. As these tools become more sophisticated, we’ll see generative AI influencing every aspect of an advertising campaign allowing efficiency gains unlike we’ve ever seen before.
By Maor Sadra, CEO at INCRMNTAL
