- Saatchi & Saatchi was struggling to find reusable assets in their huge backlog of marketing materials.
- To streamline the process, marketing agencies have started using an AI search engine called Lucy.
- This article is “CXO AI Playbook“Business leaders speak openly about how they're testing and using AI.”
In “CXO AI Playbook,” Business Insider presents mini-case studies of AI adoption across industries, company sizes, and technology DNA. Each company talks about the problem they're trying to solve with AI, who is making those decisions within their company, and their vision for the future of AI.
Saatchi & Saatchi is a global communications and marketing agency that works with major brands such as Toyota and Tide. Headquartered in London, the agency is part of Publicis Communications, a core part of Publicis Groupe.
Situation analysis: What problem was the company trying to solve?
For each client and campaign, Saatchi & Saatchi creates a collection of assets — images, videos, final presentations, strategic insights and briefs — that are accumulated over the years as the firm works with clients, chief operating officer Jeremiah Knight told Business Insider.
Often, teams will need to look at documentation of past campaigns, such as when a company launched a product, but the challenge is “how do you find that after you've created it,” he said.
Knight added that people who worked on the original campaign may not remember where those documents are stored, or may no longer be with the company, and employees don't always follow the hierarchical structure of a file system.
Knight said this can make finding the information you need a “needle in a haystack” situation.
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Knight said he realized automation could help improve asset management and worked with the company's CEO and chief financial officer to explore a solution.
“Once we saw the full scope of the problem and how valuable the solution was, we all realized this is a great thing we should be working on,” Knight added.
Use of AI
About two years ago, Saatchi & Saatchi inked a deal with Lucy, an AI-powered search engine, to help find specific products within the system.
Lucy is integrated into the agency's Microsoft Teams chat feature: Users can ask Lucy questions through Teams, and Lucy will search the agency's files and send the results back to Teams, Knight said.
To access documents, users must log into the Lucy web interface, or they can search and find information directly from the web interface without going through Teams.
“It's like a library of all of our collective knowledge, including creative assets, campaign data and other information,” Knight said.
To train the artificial intelligence model to produce the desired results, officials hosted training on how to use Lucy and encouraged everyone to use it and provide feedback.
“The more you tinker with it, the more you use it, the better it gets,” Knight said. “We had to get over that hurdle so they would continue to use it and help us train the model.”
Did it work, and how did the leaders know?
Knight said Lucy helps Search & Search index information, so if someone forgets to use the correct file structure or saves information in the wrong place, the tool can usually find it.
“This not only saves time, but also helps direct people directly to the documents that will be most valuable in answering the question, 'What can we learn from past experiences?'” he said.
Knight added that the AI implementation is still in progress: “Right now is one of the most exciting times to play around and experiment and see what's possible and unlock a lot more creatively and workflow-wise across different departments.”
What's next?
Knight said Saatchi & Saatchi continues to use generative AI across the agency in a variety of ways, including for creative conceptualization, minimizing repetitive tasks and analyzing data.
He said the investment in technology will continue as agencies look to gain efficiencies. In January, Publicis Groupe announced plans to invest $326 million in AI over the next three years, including its own tool, CoreAI.
“AI can help with any business problem,” he said. “The less time you spend looking for things, the faster you can create business value for your customers.”
We want to hear from you. If you have any comments about your company's AI efforts, jhood@businessinsider.com.
