With interest in artificial intelligence growing at an overwhelming pace, Teresa Barreira, global CMO of digital consultancy Publicis Sapient, says the best way to integrate generative AI into an organization is to ensure that everyone is actively using it. I thought it would be a good idea to work on
While many of the early applications of generative AI were used throughout creative and content processes, agencies are increasingly adopting business use cases and strategic partnerships with ChatGPT and other tools. Last month, Barreira mandated that teams within the organization become familiar with generative AI and incorporate it into their work, from generating short-form video series to media research and optimization.
“Actually, I believe [in generative AI]’” Barreira told Digiday. “It’s for us. It’s going to be a plus.”
While media planners and others still have to interpret and execute some processes, generative AI solutions help reduce costs and allow Publicis’ teams to spend their time on more detailed projects. Barreira said he believes AI will not only improve speed within an organization, but also improve the quality of content. For example, video production for a short-form series for a client now takes hours instead of weeks with AutoGPT.
Prior to joining Publicis Sapient five years ago, Mr. Barreira was CMO of Deloitte Consulting and held leadership roles at IBM and Accenture. Publicis Sapient is the digital business transformation and consulting arm of Publicis Groupe.
In this interview, Barreira discusses why AI is getting so much attention right now and what her organization has learned from mandating the use of these tools.
This interview has been edited for clarity.
Why did you force your team to experiment with AI?
What I want from my team is a way to enhance and enhance their work. I have made it mandatory for the entire marketing communications team to incorporate it into their work: experiment, learn from it, use it, be inspired by it, challenge it. I don’t believe generative AI will replace humans today, at least not yet. But I think the people using AI are actually the people who might come to your job in the future.
what did you learn
For us, the two most influential methods were video. [and media planning]. During the pandemic, we moved to a video strategy and launched a video platform called The How Channel. With nearly 200 videos on the platform, we found that videos performed much better than written content. We are about to launch a new series built entirely using generative AI technology. Each video is 60 seconds.
It used to take 2-3 weeks to produce, with several people working on it, but it took 2 hours to produce. Because someone has to write the script, then someone else creates the design, then someone else creates the frames and scrapes the video. We made this entire series with just him. It’s faster, but it’s also better quality. In fact, we believe we could have improved the quality. Because it saved me hundreds of hours, which my team can focus on producing a more detailed video of about 5 minutes. , which requires more thought and takes more time.
How about using AI for media buying and planning?
Our in-house agency media team is responsible for the strategy, planning, optimization and reporting of all paid media campaigns. But one area we were missing was direct access to subscription-based insights and media planning tools. Because these tools can be very expensive, hundreds of thousands of dollars. Last month, the media team incorporated his AutoGPT tool called GoGPT to power the research and insight process.They use this kind of autonomous agent for accountability, not only to explore audience insights, but also to help create a persona for any person using demographics and thermography. [which measures surface temperatures using video and cameras] — and look to better understand your buyers by noting the specific interests of each persona. GoGPT gave us the insight, but most importantly, it also gave us the necessary steps to run and activate the insight.
It’s amazing. It helped me develop a plan. Essentially, this is the insight on this subject and the steps you need to take to enable it in literally minutes. This investigation may take several months. Of course, media planners have to interpret and decide which steps to activate, but they offer a lot of inspiration and opportunities.
AI is nothing new, but why is it everywhere now?
Frankly, it’s all around us. We don’t call it AI. Consider what we are doing today. It’s embedded in everything from work to social life. I think people always thought of it as technology, [incorporating] Language models made it even more popular. One reason is that it can be manipulated, anyone can manipulate it. That’s why, all of a sudden, the potential comes into view.
What are you skeptical about AI and other developing technologies?
Make sure it’s ethical. But I think there are some considerations, especially with regards to ChatGPT and content creation. [generating] A sea of identity. Tools are widely available, and everyone creates the same content from the same input, which leads to a lack of originality. AI [can also be] Misguided I also see some that are not very accurate from time to time. So I think a human should make the final decisions and do the editing before publishing.
there is [also] ethical issues. We have all this great information now, but no one can tell us where the model was trained. It requires a large amount of computing power and is very expensive, raising cost and environmental concerns. [with] The server answers all these queries. But at least in my profession, I feel there are many benefits.
