Generative AI: game changer in the ad industry

‘Deadpool’ actor Ryan Reynolds described it best: mildly terrifying, but compelling. AI technology has taken the world by storm, and has made marketers shake in their boots in excitement and fear.

So, what does this mean for the industry? How does it change things? What does the future look like? These are a few questions that have emerged, alongside trends surrounding generative AI.

Whatever may be the answers, but one thing is for sure - that it’s going to change our modus operandi faster than we’ve ever thought!

We all knew this already existed. AI tools that could come up with content, have been around for a while now. A study by IT body NASSCOM in June 2022, a good five months before ChatGPT was even launched, revealed that 65% of the surveyed enterprises used AI-powered chatbots.

But why is this generative AI garnering all that attention now?

The answer is simple: precise content, easy-to-use interface and quick responses. All you have to do is type your question, and the answer is ready for you before you can blink. The results are cohesive and an amalgamation of all available data about the topic on the Internet.

This AI tool also offers other interesting features: answering follow-up questions, correcting its errors when pointed out and rejecting inappropriate requests. This makes it extremely interactive and, on some level, human. That’s where it stands out.

Humans are surprised to see human-like responses and interactions from non-humans

It’s not the first time we’re experiencing this. Tasks have been automated in the past too and have eliminated redundant activities. Maybe now, human beings will spend their energy and time on something that values their expertise more. This evolution is going on for ages in every industry, ATMs replacing people at bank for withdrawing money, cars replacing bullock carts, and hundreds of many such examples.

So now, let’s understand how generative AI works to figure out the flipside, “an algorithm generates content/responses based on past data to create new data”. We get a lot of relevant output, but this is from an already existing point of view and perspective.

And for some great advertising, it needs to be clutter-breaking, rather than herd approach. This finally leads to biased and, to some extent, lesser creative output. Hence, in creative and advertising space, agencies and brands need to scrutinise the output and be transparent.

Industries like e-commerce, media, healthcare, etc., can highly benefit to improve customer experience. While some redundant tasks like generating ad copies from product description to keyword stuffed SEO content, multiple content pieces, can be generated.

You can also ask complex questions about industry trends, competitors and brand strategies. The answers are literally at your fingertips. It’s so easy to access, that some are claiming it to be a direct competitor of Google as a search engine. By narrowing down your search and showing you exactly what you’re looking for, the AI tool is proving to be advantageous in more ways than one.

Endless possibilities

So, a billion-dollar question is - should all copywriting switch to AI tools?

I truly believe that technology enables human creativity, and never replaces it. This is how it has been for as long as humankind has existed, and this is how it will continue to be.

What the AI tool does is essentially amass content and restructure it to fit the question asked. The hidden ingredient that makes content, strategies and SEO pop, is the uniqueness of the content creator behind it. Understanding your client, their preferred tonality, their unique history and their competitors, comes from human interaction.

Moreover, the single-most glaringly obvious downside of any AI tool, taking over content creators entirely, is homogeneity. If everyone shifted to using the same AI tool for their strategies and copies, all competitors would sound the same. Identical strategies and brand posts, would pop up everywhere. That’s definitely not how brands would want to position themselves.

ChatGPT is just a tool that will enable us to write better content. As long as humans are connected by emotions and their need for social interaction, ChatGPT or any other AI technology, will not put us out of business. We can use it to our advantage by automating repetitive tasks in the content creation process.

This shifts our focus to the bigger picture: quality strategies, original ideas and expansive research. The trick lies in embracing its existence and working with it, instead of antagonising it. The results are truly magical.

Even ChatGPT agrees: 😉

(The author is Himanshu Arora, co-founder, Social Panga)