NOTEWORTHY NEWS: OUR TAKE ON THE LATEST AI/GENAI NEWS
Noteworthy AI News for Agencies - Sixth Edition
By Jeremy Lockhorn , SVP, Creative Technologies & Innovation, 4A's
THE BIG STORY:
There is rarely a dull week in AI news, but - WOW - this was a busy week. Apple’s announcements coming out of WWDC have to be the big story, though. As usual, the company previewed the latest versions of its operating systems across major platforms including Vision Pro, Apple TV, Apple Watch, Mac and iOS / iPad OS. The Keynote is worth watching (maybe at 1.5 or 2x) for what some continue to call a “master class” in feature and technology storytelling. But the really interesting stuff on “Apple Intelligence” starts at around 1:05. There’s also a nice 5-min summary.
Highlights that are perhaps most relevant to agencies and marketers:
- The rumors about the deal with OpenAI turn out to be true, but Apple later suggested that it continues to explore deals with Google and others - so ChatGPT may only be a starting point.
- Privacy continues to be a central tenet for Apple products, even with 3rd party integrations such as ChatGPT. Basic requests will be handled on-device. More complex commands or queries will tap into Apple’s Private Cloud architecture, and the most complex requests will prompt the user to provide permissions to ask ChatGPT. “Rotate Wi-Fi Address” is another apparently minor feature that is aimed at making tracking or fingerprinting more difficult.
- The rumored Web Eraser adblocker feature did not materialize, but may be coming in a future update.
- Text / image generation and refinement at the OS level are interesting and have potential to accelerate personal and professional workflows - but may depend on how developers build into apps, especially with potential competing models at the OS, app and browser levels.
- Type to Siri finally creates a way to interact with the assistant in situations where voice requests are inappropriate.
- Genmoji - the ability to use genAI to create a custom emoji - may help reinvent the art of texting.
- Image Wand can take sketches made with an Apple Pencil and turn them into beautifully stylized images, advancing multi-modal image generation capabilities that already exist in platforms like DALL-E, Midjourney, etc.
- Changes to how e-mail is prioritized in the Mail app, and how notifications are organized, may also make it more difficult for brands to break through.
- Lastly, personal context continues a trend that has been happening in the app ecosystem for a while now - namely, reducing the need to open a specific app by surfacing relevant and timely content outside of the app in rich notifications, widgets, live updates, etc. Similarly, some of these new capabilities may enable an end-run around traditional search methodologies. Combined with Google’s AI Overviews and other AI-first search platforms, changes may be coming to organic and paid search strategies.
Many of these new iOS features will require the latest Apple hardware, namely an iPhone 15 pro / pro max or newer or at least an M1 Mac, somewhat limiting reach at launch. Still, it will be interesting to follow the progress as developers continue to digest all of the news coming out of the conference.
The original iPhone (celebrating its 17th birthday this month) and other modern smartphones that followed it created a new generation of empowered consumers, fundamentally changing how people interact with each other, brands, and the world around them. AI features coming to both iOS and Android are likely to quickly and radically change consumer behavior yet again, necessitating a proactive approach from forward-thinking agencies. To assist their clients in keeping up with these evolving behaviors, it is crucial for these agencies to closely monitor these AI advances.
OTHER INTERESTING AI NEWS FOR AGENCIES:
- New text-to-video models Dream Machine and Kling got some headlines and attention, continuing to showcase how quickly AI video generation is evolving.
- Campaign led up to Cannes by asking holding company CEOs how they justify the investment in creativity in the age of AI. Worthy reads from Publicis, Dentsu, IPG, Havas, WPP, and Omnicom.
- Think with Google shares a variety of perspectives from marketers on how they are using GenAI, while a new BCG study suggests that CMOs are struggling to scale GenAI initiatives.
- Emarketer highlights the importance of content provenance and the momentum building behind C2PA.
- GroupM estimates that nearly 95% of media buying will be AI-enabled by 2029.
- Adobe overhauls terms of service to say it won’t train AI on customers’ work.
- Asana has unveiled AI teammates.
RECENT AI CAMPAIGN EXAMPLES:
- Walmart continues to add new GenAI search and shopping assistant capabilities.
- Publicis unveils AI BS Bot ahead of Cannes to cut through the hype.
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