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The Editors’ Perspective – What’s really happening with AI?

6 things you need to know about generative AI

The World Media Group hosted its latest Smart Briefing yesterday with a panel of AI experts distilling the reality from the hype. Chaired by Economist Impact’s Emma Winchurch-Beale, the panel included Jeremy Kahn, AI Editor at Fortune, Elena Corchero, Director of Emerging Tech and Innovation at Dow Jones Live, and Hugh Langley, Senior Correspondent at Business Insider. Below is the discussion video and our key take outs from the event.

1.   Cool demos – but not worth paying for yet

Insider’s Hugh Langley said it felt like there had been 500 hype cycles since the arrival of Chat GPT 18 months ago, and that would continue as the models got better. However, it’s still not clear what generative AI’s consumer proposition will be for Large Language Models (LLMs). Langley paraphrased Sam Altman, founder of OpenAI’s description of Chat GPT as a ‘cool demo, bad product’. “I think what we’re going to see with these tools is that they’re cool to play with, but not yet necessarily turning into things people are going to pay money for,” Langley says.

Langley believes we’ll start to see a more specific focus on use cases such as medicine for LLMs in the future. He said we’re also likely to see an increase in AI Agents automating processes and taking away the leg work for companies. An Agent could be used to track invoices, for example, with a minimal amount of human supervision, or an AI Travel Agent could save time building an itinerary.

2.   Chat GPT still the leading model for businesses

Fortune’s Jeremy Kahn referenced a recent survey from the venture capital firm A16z, that asked 2,000 businesses about their adoption of generative AI and the models they were using. “It turned out that lots of people are playing around with lots of different models and different methodologies. But very few people actually have anything in full production,” he said.

Anything that is in full production is almost exclusively using Open AI’s GPT4 API. That may be because people are most comfortable with it as the first to market, but Kahn says it’s also still the most capable model available. “That reliability is important in enterprise use cases where being 86% accurate as opposed to 79% accurate actually makes a difference in deployment,” he says.

The vast majority of models currently in production are in employee-facing applications, not in customer or consumer-facing applications, which Kahn puts down to two things. Firstly, there’s the question of whether it’s reliable enough to be customer-facing. Secondly, the cost versus the return on investment. “These models are still very expensive to use,” he says. “People haven’t quite figured out how this is really going to be worth it.”

3.   Big tech companies are winning out over start-ups

The cost is one of the problems facing start-ups. Those in the Open Source world are giving away their model for free in the hope that people will build on it. But just because you get the model for free, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to save you money. ”It costs a start-up a tremendous amount to build an API and it’s not clear what their business model is so the large tech companies seem to be the big winners here,” Kahn says. Rather than investing in building AI themselves, he is noticing many organisations are waiting to see what companies like Microsoft or Salesforce create.

Despite some narratives that suggest that some of the big tech companies like Google are behind the curve on generative AI, Langley thinks they will catch up fast because they have the scale, infrastructure and brainpower to win in this space.

4.    Think of AI as a layer you can add to anything

The clients that Elena Corchero works with at Dow Jones Live are enthusiastic about the potential for AI and have embraced it in the same way they have other technologies such as the Metaverse, NFT, AR and VR. Rather than it being simply the ‘next shiny thing’ however, Elena sees generative AI as the key to propelling these other technologies to the next level.

“It’s a layer that you can add to absolutely anything, so all the investment in other technologies had not been in vain,” she says, as illustrated by the Dow Jones project Sustainable Horizons.  This new method of immersive storytelling demonstrates how AI can create a more sustainable world. The experience is developed using generative AI with human supervision for the script, the audio, the music, the imagery, the animation and the environments within the 3D world. It’s a brilliant example of how all the technologies come together under the layer of AI.

Kahn talked about how AI is being used in this way with self-driving cars. By layering LLM testing on top of a foundation model, the AI can explain what it’s doing while it’s driving. “It can talk through the logic of what it’s trying to do – ‘I see a pedestrian here, therefore, we’re going to apply the brakes,’” Kahn explained. This acts as a debugging technology for engineers building the systems.

It also works for financial analysis tools. Kahn cited an example of a CEO asking how to save 10 million on a budget in the next quarter. Seconds later, the AI had generated suggestions of the areas it was possible to make cuts in.

5.    It’s only as good as the human controlling it

Although all our panel agreed that generative AI technology is world-changing, we shouldn’t worry about it stealing our jobs (yet). Chatbots are only as good as the search prompts you give them and much of what AI can do is flawed without human intervention. That said, employers have a responsibility to consider how they support the workforce and help people to navigate this uncertainty.

“The reality is that generative AI is going to empower people; we need to upskill them on how to use these APIs and to understand where it can fail and the flaws to look out for,” Corchero says. “We need to focus on enhancing all capabilities, but also safeguarding collective values, which is the human alignment that is missing from generative AI.”

6.   Heightened vigilance and rigorous fact-checking required

The final topic centred around how to combat disinformation and misinformation, particularly in an election year. The rise of unintentional misinformation stemming from the proliferation of AI-generated content, combined with intentional disinformation, such as deep fakes, is presenting serious challenges to newsrooms.

Although some standards and legislation are in place, there is still a long way to go. “While the industry seems to be coalescing around the C2PA standard, it’s not perfect and can be manipulated,” Kahn says. Likewise, watermarks can be removed and audio content can be difficult to authenticate.

As journalists grapple with the task of distinguishing between genuine stories and fabricated or manipulated content, our panel agreed that it requires heightened vigilance and rigorous fact-checking procedures for newsrooms.

However, Corchero says this also presents an opportunity “for trusted media brands to distinguish themselves as impartial sources of truth, and to regain public trust. Now more than ever, it’s going to be very important to support people by providing that.”

Find out more about the World Media Group’s events programme or sign up to our next Smart Briefing here.

What we learned about Davos and its implication on the year ahead

Last week the WMG had its first Smart Briefing of the year, a lively discussion with some of our top international journalists about the impact of Davos on the year ahead. Business Insider’s Spriha Srivastava chaired the panel, which included BBC News’s Faisal Islam, TIME’s Yasmeen Serhan and CNN’s Hanna Ziady. The full discussion is available to watch below alongside our key takeouts. [vc_video link=”https://youtu.be/G-err9SAMuI?si=h832ihNEyyeQcEFo” el_width=”80″]

A cautiously optimistic outlook

Business leaders at Davos expressed a sense of ‘cautious optimism’ over the outlook for the global economy with the expectation that central banks will cut interest rates likely to deliver a boost to business and consumer spending. However, according to Hanna Ziady, there are still question marks over whether we can declare victory over inflation yet, not just from economists but also from bankers and from business executives. After a decade of ultra-low interest rates, where borrowing was cheap, companies are now having to become more ruthless and focused about how and where they invest, with borrowing costs expected to remain higher than in the recent past. Overstaffing is one such example, as evidenced by the slew of tech company layoffs we’ve seen over the last couple of years. Geopolitics is clouding the outlook, with concerns around shipping costs increasing because of the situation in the Red Sea and the potential for energy prices to rise if the Middle East conflict widens. That said, the ongoing conflict within Israel and Gaza didn’t dominate Davos in the way that Ukraine did last year. While the conflict was a focus of many of Yasmeen Serhan’s interviews, she thinks the lack of profile was because the Israel/Palestine/Gaza situation is less black and white. “I found that when people did talk about it – and they certainly talked about it – it was with a bit of anxiety and anxiousness,” she said.

 AI seeped into every conversation

It’s no surprise that AI was a hot topic. Srivastava asked the panel how they thought businesses were going to implement it and if people had a true understanding of it yet. Faisal Islam said that “about a third of Davos was like a giant AI sales conference,” but despite being cynical about its omnipresence, he is optimistic about how it will increase productivity, citing what’s been happening here in Britain with a Google DeepMind example of protein mapping. Previously, it took one PhD five years to map a protein, and it would have taken a billion PhD years to map all the proteins in the world. Today that has been achieved, thanks to generative AI, in a matter of months. Ziady thinks the potential of AI will contribute to economic growth by boosting productivity, which has been very weak for some time in the Western world. The conversations she was having about it at Davos were positive, centring on how it was going to augment workers rather than replacing jobs. She cited OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s pragmatic view ofAI as a “tool”, which, like any other tool, some people are using really well and it’s making them more productive, but it can’t do everything. For Serhan, who covers democracy and rising authoritarianism around the world, weighing up the risks and rewards that come with generative AI is unavoidable. “We have an unprecedented election year on our hands where half of the global population is going to be going to the polls at one point, including here in the UK and in the US. One thing that was certainly on my mind, particularly given the fact that this year’s conference was under the banner of Rebuilding Trust, was the question of how generative AI is going to impact these elections?” she said.

The battle against misinformation and disinformation

Serhan pointed out that AI has been used to mislead people in the hands of bad actors and could even be used by ‘bad candidates’ who want to mislead voters. Speaking with people about this in a geopolitical context and a from a human rights point of view, she said she was disappointed that there wasn’t more of a focus on it at Davos, especially given the headline theme of Rebuilding Trust. That said, she hopes it will be a focussed topic in the year ahead. Srivastava agreed there could be a huge problem in India, for example, during the upcoming election because the spread of misinformation and deep fakes is so wide. Islam pointed out that with the instant ability of AI to create thousands of articles that appear quite credible, it becomes easy for bad actors – not to specifically misinform, but to muddy the waters in terms of information. He said it was a big conversation amongst media executives at Davos and stressed that there’s never been a better argument for quality journalism from strong, trusted leading media brands. When it comes to bridging the digital divide, Serhan believes the media has a key role to play in shoring up trust. Although 95% of the global population now lives in areas served by mobile broadband connectivity, billions of people remain offline. While getting them online is important, Serhan pointed out that it’s equally important to ensure that the information they are accessing once online is accurate. During a TIME roundtable Josephine Teo, Singapore’s Minister for Communications, emphasised how essential this is. Teo said the media has an important role in securing digital trust for the long-term, stressing that the risks with going online could drive people to withdraw from digital engagement, which would be detrimental.

A memorable meeting

Finally, the panel ended on a fun note with Srivastava sharing her favourite celebrity anecdote from the conference. “I was going to interview the Minister of AI for UAE and I was downstairs in their pavilion waiting outside. The room door opened up and Sam Altman was there right in front of me. And the first word that came out of my mouth was a four-letter word that rhymes with duck! He laughed out loud. We had a two-minute interaction and he walked away, then he turned back and smiled. I knew that he would definitely remember me now!”

The Implications of AI on Trust and Truth In Marketing

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]The World Media Group hosted a panel in Cannes with Amir Malik, Managing Director, Digital Transformation Accenture and Evan Bretos, Director, Newsroom at The Washington Post discussing the implications Generative AI may have on trust and truth in marketing. Emma Winchurch-Beale, Executive Director, Insider, chaired the discussion, quizzing our experts on issues such as:

  • How marketers are currently using generative AI and how quickly it’s changing
  • The impact generative AI will have on personalisation
  • What will happen when there’s more AI generated content than human content
  • The consequences of AI generated by bad actors

Watch the full video to find out what our panel had to say about all these questions and more.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_video link=”https://youtu.be/zovMMqy41pI”][/vc_column][/vc_row]

What marketers need to know about Generative AI by Belinda Barker, Chief Executive of The World Media Group

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]What marketers need to know about Generative AI

You can’t pick up a newspaper or turn on the TV these days without stumbling across a story about Generative AI or, more specifically, Chat GPT. Last month during a panel on the subject at the CIM Financial Marketing Leaders’ Summit, I was one of the few people in the room to admit that I’d never used Chat GPT. I’ve since rectified that and can see some benefits for marketers – as long as we’re able to navigate the potential pitfalls.

So, what do marketers need to know about Generative AI? Here are my key outtakes after listening to the panel of experts on the subject.

A powerful tool if wielded correctly

Anyone who has asked Chat GPT a question will be aware of its shortcomings when it comes to delivering accurate information, but with the right data, it has the potential to hugely enhance productivity. Lindsey Herbert, Chief Innovation Officer at IBM Garage, put this into context with a brilliant example of how, if wielded correctly, Generative AI can be a powerful tool.

Herbert explained that it took about 10 years to train IBM’s question-answering AI, Watson, in 12 languages. However, by adding the foundational modelling made possible by Generative AI to Watson’s natural language processing, they were able to increase that to 25 languages within just one year.

The US company CVS Pharmacies reaped the benefits of this when, during the pandemic, they were receiving a deluge of calls about the Covid vaccine. Using the natural language processing capability for IBM’s voice AI, they were able to handle 28 million calls, launching the programme from scratch in less than 3 weeks.

Seventy percent of callers were 100 percent satisfied by the response – unaware that they were speaking to an AI. It’s clear from this example that the potential for human-like chatbots to streamline the customer care business is enormous.

Hyper-personalisation has become a reality

Marketers have been talking about hyper-personalisation for years, but generative AI can make it a reality. Amir Malik, MD, Digital Marketing at Accenture, told the CIM Financial Marketing Leaders’ Summit audience that there’s a radical change coming around how we will experience Account Based Marketing.

Generative AI can generate tens of thousands of drafts for a hyper-personalised experience to one segment of customers in just a few hours, making it possible to reach people faster and much more effectively. Add to that technology like Synthesia, which creates a human avatar that has ChatGPT speech personalised to the individual, and it starts to feel like something out of a sci-fi movie.

But that’s not necessarily a good thing. As Herbert pointed out, in most sci-fi movies when we see a character walking through the streets of a futuristic city bombarded by talking ads, their reaction is generally to avoid or ignore the advertising! When there’s a deluge of content, standing out becomes so much more difficult, so creativity will remain the key ingredient when it comes to reaching audiences.

Expect quantity over quality 

According to Malik, Generative AI is evolving four times faster than Moore’s law. As the rate of improvement rapidly increases, it has the potential to disrupt many industries. While we can undoubtedly save time and resources by generating large volumes of content such as blogs and social media posts, the source of the information may be spurious.

Programmes such as Chat GPT are only as good as the information they are being fed. If you’re using AI to create content, it could well be answering your question based on a high volume of low-quality articles that dominate the search response. Editing and fact-checking your material is essential. Here’s where the 80:20 rule comes into play – AI can do 80 percent of the job, but the quality of the output will be determined by the last 20 percent of human input.

Add to that the fact that there’s currently a lack of regulation around AI worldwide. If we think about a worst-case scenario, in the wrong hands Chat GPT could be flooded with a high volume of political disinformation and misinformation or content from conspiracy theorists.

Being human is what makes us unique

While there’s no question that we can save ourselves hours of time by using AI, productivity means nothing if it doesn’t lead our customers to engage with whatever it is we’re promoting. As marketers we’re competing for people’s attention and the best way to capture them is to present a unique creative idea.

As IBM’s Herbert pointed out, if you’re asking a programme like chat GPT to write copy for your campaign, and you use it as is, you have failed! What Chat GPT is doing is providing the most likely answer to the question that you’ve posed. If the person you’re targeting is able to predict what you’re saying, they’re very unlikely to bother reading your email or following your call to action.

Where Chat GPT can come in useful is testing out your new marketing campaign or your copy against the AI to check whether what you’ve written actually is unique. If Chat GPT comes up with a similar result, it’s time for a re-think!

Having immersed myself further into the world of Generative AI, I think there are plenty of opportunities for marketers to get excited about. The danger is that if, in our race to increase productivity or to achieve hyper personalisation we lose sight of creativity, we risk going from brand to bland.

If you’re heading to Cannes and would like to find out more about the implications of Generative AI on trust and truth in marketing, join us for our panel discussion on the subject:

Date                  Wednesday 21st June
Time                  9.45 – 11.00 CET
Place                 Axel Springer Freedomhaus, Hotel Barrière Le Majestic Cannes, 10 Bd de la Croisette, 06400 Cannes, France

Please fill out the form here to confirm your attendance.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]