Tag: humans and machines
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Duluth Lets AI Bid, But Keeps Humans on the Jokes
Duluth Trading Company is taking the agentic media buying trend and drawing a fairly human boundary: AI agents can handle tasks like bidding and creative iteration management, but anything resembling brand voice, humor, or “ethos” stays closer to people with pulse rates. Marketing director Ellie Uberto framed it during a live Digiday Podcast recording at…
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Gen AI Boosts Productivity, But Can’t Turn Novices Into Experts
Harvard Business School’s Iavor Bojinov and Edward McFowland III set out to test the workplace vibe we’ve all felt lately: “AI makes you feel like you can do anything. But can you do [a task] as well as people whose job it is?” In an experiment with 78 employees at IG Group, they looked at…
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AI brain fry: What marketers need to know
That wiped-out feeling after “saving time” with AI now has a label: AI brain fry—mental fatigue that comes from using and, more importantly, babysitting AI tools past your cognitive limit. Research cited from Boston Consulting Group and UC Riverside (published via Harvard Business Review) surveyed 1,488 full-time US workers: 14% reported AI brain fry overall,…
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Study Reveals AI-Only Ads Boost Engagement Over Hybrid Approaches
This one is going to be maybe a little controversial, or at least news that humans don’t want to hear. A joint study from NYU and Emory University has delivered a sharp rebuke to the idea that humans and AI make better creatives together. After testing GenAI ads across more than 100,000 impressions, the researchers…
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Companies Hit Undo on AI-Only Customer Service
It seems as though replacing all your customer service reps with chatbots isn’t the silver bullet some execs thought it would be. According to a Gartner survey of 163 customer service leaders, half of the companies that planned to go all-in on AI for support are now walking that back. The big idea? Save costs…
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AI in the Office: Most Workers Trust AI’s Autonomous Future
Salesforce’s recent research reveals a growing acceptance among global workers for AI co-workers in the autonomous AI workplace, with systems capable of operating with minimal human oversight. The study, which surveyed nearly 6,000 workers, found that 77% anticipate trusting a fully AI-powered future. Currently, only 10% trust AI to operate autonomously, but this is expected…
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UK Clothing Retailer Sees Boost in Google Shopping Ads with AI-Written Copy
UK clothing retailer Matalan and agency Havas Media UK found that AI-generated Google Shopping ads outperformed human-written ones, with up to a 16% increase in search impressions for men’s suits. The AI utilized, including ChatGPT-4, optimized product descriptions with keyword-heavy sentences that were more favorable to Google’s algorithms, enhancing product visibility and impressions significantly. Sounds…
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Coca-Cola uses AI-generated QR codes in latest push
The humble QR code is getting a long overdue makeover in a new brand/AI/artist collaboration from the beverage giant… Here’s one unassailable benefit of AI—it can make QR codes look prettier. The humble and usually homely digital code gets a marked upgrade in Coca-Cola’s new campaign, which uses AI to generate artful images that still…
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VW used AI to reunite singer Elis Regina, who died in 1982, with her Grammy-winning daughter
This is a beautiful example of human + machine collaboration, laced with a bit of controversy. The automotive brand virtually resurrected a beloved singer for an AI-powered duet with her daughter. It clearly resonated with many in the target audience, but has raised ethical questions – specifically around talent consent in the age of AI.…
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Microsoft-powered AI helps create new whisky recipes
Geekwire covers another interesting example of human and machine collaboration. This time, Mackmyra, a Swedish whisky distillery, turned to Microsoft and a Finnish technology consulting firm called Fourkind to create novel whisky recipes for master blender Angela D’Orazio. At this stage, these sorts of collaborations seem a bit gimmicky – it seems as though the…
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How Wimbledon and Watson are using AI to curate video highlights
The Wimbledon tennis championship is among the world’s most prestigious sporting events. First held in 1877, it’s also the oldest tennis tournament in the world. Much has changed in the past 142 years — from the players’ attire to the quality of their equipment — but behind the scenes an AI evolution is transforming how…
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Google’s Duplex can’t fully replace humans … yet.
Image via Glenn Harvey at NYT Google previewed Duplex at its I/O conference in 2018 and has been recently expanding device support for the service. Demos promise that a borderline creepy voicebot, powered by artificial intelligence, will call restaurants and make reservations for you over the phone. Wicked cool. Bit scary, and eerily human. Except…