Artificial Intelligence, or AI as it’s called on a day-to-day basis, is the talk of the town this autumn. Even though AI may be at the forefront of human technology, there’s no news that that the computer with full speed are outsmarting humans. Even if it may not be definable as AI, some say that the victory of computer “Deep Blue” over chess master Garry Kasparov in 1997 was the first sign of what was to come.

Today, twenty years later, it’s easy to say that the development has continued forwards at a furious pace. More than any year before, 2017 has been the year of AI. One of the best reads on the subject this year is from Vanity Fair (04/2017) where super entrepreneur Elon Musk is the centre of attention. Or really, Elon Musk’s hesitation towards the quick progress within the field of AI.

‘There’s no question that the top technologists in Silicon Valley now take A.I. far more seriously—that they do acknowledge it as a risk,” he observes. “I’m not sure that they yet appreciate the significance of the risk.’ – Vanity Fair, April 2017

If we look towards our own industry and context, how will the artificial intelligence affect the world of marketing? First of all, that question is not even relevant anymore, AI is already affecting the communications industry. Ever since the big social media platforms took over, AI has been a natural part of our reality. Within our industry, the really big opportunities with AI lay within the collection data from campaigns. Instead of relying on inaccurate insights about target audiences, in the future we will be given exact records about whom integrates with what content at what specific time. In the future we might even have campaigns that, in real time, adapt to the users behaviour? At the same time there’s also big opportunities in the campaign evaluation processes. In the future, the big media monitoring tools will be able to provide full reports and insight based on the data gathered, something that is done today, but this time won’t need any human supervision and interaction.

In an industry where we’re always discussing how to accurately measure the results of campaigns and actions, AI will be a salvation for the many but a headache for some. How many consulting hours will disappear when we get campaigns that evaluate and optimize themselves? We at AWB look at the future with optimism, even though it may cost us our jobs.