May 23, 2024 • 46 mins
No one can escape a conversation about AI today (and this statement will likely remain relevant whenever if read in the near future).
As AI continues to dominate discussions in 2024, we revisit a previous dialogue with Anne Green, host of the Building Brand Gravity podcast and CEO of G&S Business Communications, and Kyle Turner, Digital Growth Director at the same firm. This conversation explores the transformative impact of AI across the tech and comms industries and anticipates the exciting future landscape for businesses in an AI-driven world.
As AI continues to dominate discussions in 2024, we revisit a previous dialogue with Anne Green, host of the Building Brand Gravity podcast and CEO of G&S Business Communications, and Kyle Turner, Digital Growth Director at the same firm. This conversation explores the transformative impact of AI across the tech and comms industries and anticipates the exciting future landscape for businesses in an AI-driven world.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hello, Building Brand Gravity Listeners,and today's special episode, we're actually going
to revisit our December discussion on theYear in AI for twenty twenty three,
so the year that truly showcased therapid evolution and impact of artificial intelligence in
various spheres. If you recall lastDecember, we marveled at the accelerating pace
of AI advancements, a trend thatcontinues to shape our digital and real world
(00:25):
interactions profoundly. In fact, onekey takeaway was that creativity need not be
stifled by AI, rather it couldbe augmented. As we've moved further into
twenty twenty four, this blend ofhuman ingenuity and artificial intelligence has only grown
more seamless, opening new avenues forcreative problem solving across industries. We also
(00:45):
discussed the role of generative AI asa tool for enhancing humor interactions, particularly
in challenging scenarios such as conversation negotiations. This application remains incredibly relevant as more
professionals adopt to AI to simulate andprepare for important coome stations and in the
realm of communications of public relations ourwheelhouse. Of course, AI's capacity for
(01:06):
data analysis and insight generation was ahot topic, and this area has seen
substantial growth, demonstrating AI's potential tolink communication efforts directly to strategic business outcomes,
a trend that continues to gain lament. A few other exciting developments from
the AI frontier that came online sinceour last conversation. One that I'm really
(01:26):
excited about. Multimobile AI has takena significant leap forward, becoming now more
viable and integrated with consumer products.Look no further than the Meta and Ray
banned sunglasses that have just seen theirfirst upgrade integrating multimobial AI into their software.
Our creative professionals have access now toSora ai, which is a video
(01:49):
AI platform, So now it's emergedas a groundbreaking tool for videographers and motion
designers which enhance how they at leastthey claim can birk storage life. And
lastly, this is a normal one, but the Eraser platform is now revolutionizing
the way software developers and UAX developersare mapping out customer journeys, making it
simpler, more intuitive. We'll seeif that actually comes to their time as
(02:12):
so as we look ahead at thelandscape that AI remains dynamic every evolving,
and although this conversation that you're aboutto listen to happened in December, I
really think that everything's said here stillfeels relevant and prescient. Now hope you
enjoy it. You are listening toBuilding Brand Gravity Attracting People into Your Orbit,
(02:35):
a GNS Business Communications podcast. Thisis a show for communications pros across
industries looking to gain an inside ofview into industry influence. You're about to
hear a conversation with leading industry professionalstalking about the importance of building business impact
through sound brand strategy. Let's getinto the show. Hey, everybody,
(03:00):
welcome to Building Brand Gravity. Myname is Ann Green. I'm a principle
in managing director here at g ANDSBusiness Communications and soon to be CEO here
at the agency, and I amvery excited to be curating a conversation with
the wonderful Kyle Turner, who isour Digital Growth Director. Kyle. Welcome,
Hello, Hello, glad to behere. Hello, Hello, So
(03:23):
Kyle, we're here to talk aboutthe year in Generative AI. It has
been a year, it has,and I would say it feels like one
hundred years since the Moniker chat GPTfirst exploded into our consciousness just last November
twenty twenty. Now, kudos tothose who already knew all about it long
before. I know you're out there, but for most of society it was
(03:46):
last November. And it's kind ofamazing to live through a moment when a
new tech utterly captures all aspects ofour imagination and really simultaneously shifts conversations everywhere
in buses, business world, techworld, academia and also like your mom
is asking you about it, soyou know, Kyle, I'm sure you're
having lots of conversations with family memberstoo. And as we close out twenty
(04:11):
twenty three, and the reason wewanted to talk today is the big question
for me is, as long timeintegrated marketing communications practitioner and a counselor and
an organizational leader, where are wenow? And then where is this going?
And how fast? So I wouldventure to guess that there's about sixteen
million podcasts of this kind looking atJENII at the end of the year,
(04:32):
and Kyle and I do not havethe energy nor the time to recap every
advance that's happened in Generative AI intotwenty twenty three. But I think our
goal today is to like take oneanother's temperature on where AI is now,
the big advances run down how ourindustry integrated marketing, communications and all of
(04:54):
its forms has started to learn andadapt and incorporate and talk a little bit
about what we see what's coming forthe year ahead, including I think,
Kyle, you said what is BSand what is not BS? So does
that sound good to you, Kyle? I'm excited to get into that for
sure. Yeah, exactly. Sojust to start it off, Kyle,
(05:14):
first question for you, what's oneof the big technological advances in jen AI
from twenty twenty three that really madeyou stop in your tracks or get interested?
Yeah, I've been seeing a lotin this space, as I'm sure
you have to me. What stoppedme in my tracks? I saw earlier
this year I was talking with oneof our colleagues here an AI model was
(05:39):
used to spot pancreatic cancer and highrisk individuals up to three years before diagnosis.
Now this follows a similar story Isaw maybe about four years ago of
an AI model using being used tospot brain cancer using blood samples. So
what does that say to me?It's we're at the precipice of I think
(06:01):
some really interesting and life changing andin some ways probably life affirming ways that
I think AI can start to changethe way that we do medicine. This
kind of predictive stuff, which we'llprobably get into later a few times,
is where I find the most excitement. I think as a cancer survivor especially,
you could make the argument that despitethe research and the dollars that have
(06:25):
been poured into the cancer spaces,we're only now maybe the last like four
or five years, starting to seesome real sea change in the way that
cancer is treated diagnosed, and Ithink AI represents just yet another way that
we can get to diagnoses faster andhopefully give more people a chance to live
a life that they want. Yeah, it's interesting you said that because having
(06:49):
had former clients working in the cancerspace like Memorials and Cuttering. There was
so much talk about IBM Watson inthe early days and maybe overhype of what
it's capabilities would be in the cancerspace, and when it didn't immediately deliver
on the dream that we saw outthere, there was almost like this huge
(07:10):
skepticism to say, oh, lookit's overhyped, it doesn't work. Meanwhile,
I think the truer thing was.Those are some of the early tests
and learnings, very early of AIin that space. Obviously, IBM has
Watson X now they're very advanced inthis area. But it is interesting to
see now, and you and Ihave been around long enough, I certainly
(07:31):
have to see a lot of techcycles. There's stuff that in the early
blushes is not going to fully makeit, and people kind of say eh,
but then it's cooking along the wholeway. So I think that's an
exciting one. I mean, Ithink for me, the thing that blew
me away this year is not maybeany one advance. It's just the speed
(07:51):
of it all and how listening toeven deep experts who've been in the development
realm of AI many years talk abouthow much exponentially faster this is coming now
than they had seen before. Andalso just it is, as I said
earlier, really wild to be botha human being and a professional around and
(08:18):
awake and alert and mindful when thelightning bolt hits, and everybody says,
I don't know what to make ofthis, but it feels so different and
powerful. So I think I thinkthat's a really really really big one,
you know, in terms of sowe've talked about sort of the big picture,
like what's that thing that really stoppedus in our tracks. But there's
(08:39):
a lot of milestones and breakthroughs happeningthat have started to certainly affect our industry.
You know, I'll start on thatone. For me, it's watching
Ai be baked and everywhere, youknow, very very quickly. We went
from the large language models, youknow, and open Ai made a very
deliberate decision to release that to thepublic, and it's actually really interesting to
see the coverage the scenes after thatwhole insanity. That's kind of getting more
(09:03):
into how the soup was made thereand why open ai decided to release chat
GPT when it did. But weknew very early on that it needed to
be baked into enterprise products that we'realready using. And the speed with which
that's happening has been really really strikingme. What has struck you on some
of the front in terms of actualmilestones and things being released this year?
(09:24):
You know, when you said thespeed is striking you, I wanted to
ask why you were surprised about that, And I only asked because of this.
I remember reading long ago, andI used to work in media planning
and buying. I saw a chargeI'm sure you've seen it too, that
shows the speed at which different technologicaladvancement hit one million users. I think
(09:48):
by the time you get to Facebook, that happened in like a week,
you know, starting with like radio, which took you know, five ten
years. You know, Moore's law. Is it Moore's law that dictates like
change accelerates with change. I thinkI've been I've been on this boat and
for so long I've been waiting forto see the practical uses of generative AI,
(10:13):
and I guess that's what's exciting methe most. You know, you
can say striking too. I amstarting to be a lot more interested or
a lot less interested. I'll startthere with the projections of what jennai could
be, and way more interested withthe like practical day to day uses of
it. Now I've told you this. The more that I use platforms like
(10:35):
Dolly or gpt for or claud orwhatever it is, the more creative ways
I think of using it. AndI think that also speaks to the ways
that jenai is changing right now.To your point about the speed, I
think since Sam, especially since likesomebody like Sam Altman has been kind of
empowered by the staff at open Ai. I only think that we're I mean,
(11:01):
just going to continue to accelerate atthis point, and we're going to
have to get smarter, much fasterabout the ways in which we protect our
ethics when using this stuff, becauseit's I think the practical uses are going
to expand justice exponentially as the technologyitself is. Yeah, you're so right,
and I think you're right to askme that question. I'm like,
(11:22):
why should be surprised at how fastthings develop the curve? Like if I
think about one of the last seismicshifts, which was really the right to
web, the meaning WordPress, typepad, I don't need to code,
the web is open to me Webone. Yeah, and then social media.
(11:43):
That arc of adoption of process change, of societal change happened at a
certain speed. This one's coming evenfaster. I think something you just said.
Kyle and I had a session internallyyesterday here at GNS with many many
of our colleagues just to talk aboutthe state of jen Ai, what we're
seeing, what it's baked into now, what our roadmap is, et cetera.
(12:09):
But we had a lot of funwith prompts in the chat, prompts
for the human beings, not forthe AI, and we are asking folks
to share some of the uses theydo at work or at home. And
you're right, Kyle, like thediversity and creativity and in some cases the
total randomness. But you're like,seriously, you thought to do that?
That's so random, but it's sosmart that I was kind of stunned.
(12:33):
And it was funny in the chatto see other of our colleagues being like,
WHOA, I never thought of allthese things, so that to me,
I think something came to my mind. It's like you light a sparkler,
you know, at fourth of July, and all these sparks start to
fly off of it. That's whatit felt like watching the chat, like
all this creativity and energy that justseems to feed on itself. And maybe
(12:56):
that sounds a little bit like theexperience you're having. Oh, oh for
sure, I think like kind ofcrystallized for me. I started using it
a while ago, maybe a coupleof weeks ago, to help me draft
And this is whil to even admitthis, but I asked it to help
me draft a conversation with my fiveyear old because our zones are changing here,
(13:20):
so his school that he's in nowis not going to be a school
he will be able to attend withoutsome alternate, some extenuating circumstances next year.
So I asked chat GPT GPT fourspecifically, like, give me the
draft of a conversation that explains toa five year old why he has to
change schools in a year from aschool he doesn't like or he that he
(13:43):
likes a lot. And I thoughtthat the way that this thing framed up
a conversation like this was fascinating tome, Like not something I would have
thought of doing six months ago.However, and this is why I'm being
specific about citing GPT, for GPTfour is a more advanced version of the
(14:03):
open aas GPT, so it isa little smarter, a lot smarter honestly
about picking up on cues and understandingprompts than three point five was. It
was fascinating. I thought that theway that it framed this up, obviously
from the perspective of the parent,it framed it up as a situation on
(14:24):
a playground. There these are waysin which I had not thought of using
it. But helping you navigate realhuman interactions, not replacing them, but
kind of giving you a way toframe your mind around potentially difficult conversations.
I think sounds it sounds maybe thistopic in some ways, but to me
(14:46):
it is almost therapeutic. It givesyou a way to kind of get your
thoughts out, help you organize them, and then perhaps come up with a
more productive way of having a conversationthat perhaps may have been harder to have
previously. Kind of primes you forthat. That's such a fascinating example.
And see, that's just another thingof like wow, you know, just
(15:07):
see experiments, see what it does. It reminds me. You know,
in the discussion with our colleagues yesterday, a big theme came out, which
is helping you think about things ina fresh way or maybe coming at it
from a different corner. And ifyou look at Deep Mind and their experiments
with Alpha Go, you know,which built on what IBM did with chess
(15:28):
earlier, you had this question ofcould a machine ever beat you know,
the elite go players around the world, and everybody knows the story now it
did because it tried to move.That just was so atypical that that a
player that was decades and generations ofhuman knowledge that wasn't the way a master
would play the game, And it'sthat reminds me that's like it's taking a
(15:50):
conversation that you, as a parent, we usually approach in like a set
variety of ways, and bringing itinto a totally different context to bring it
into our industry, the marcom industry. I feel like in talking to many
agencies and many colleagues and many clientside folks over the course of the year,
(16:11):
because it's such a top I mean, all of us are talking about
it all the time. How areyou using it? What are you doing?
The real theme right now this yearis experimentation to implementation, and I
use implementation loosely because it's not asfully realized in many ways as it will
be. I mean that's obvious rightnow, but people are trying to put
the rubber on the road in termsof how are we going to use this.
(16:33):
So, if you look back attwenty twenty three, Kyle, what
are some of the early implementations you'vebeen seeing in our industry or contexts that
have been interesting to you? Well, you know, I think we're still
at the nascent stages of what's possiblein PR, PR and comms for JENNAI,
I see the most readily applicable waysto use jenni is would be in
(17:00):
data and analytics. I think themore that you are leveraging data to make
decisions, the more help you willlikely need to interpret that data, especially
now as we are getting access tomore and more information. One of the
ways that we are or that certainlythat I am trying to leverage jen ai
(17:21):
is to help with social media analysis, is to help with sentiment analysis.
I think most of these tools area lot smarter than tools like netbace were,
and that when they were using earlyversions of AI to kind of help
or machine learning to kind of helpunderstand how sentiment is coming through in people's
commentary on social media. We're ina much smarter place now, and though
(17:45):
we may be still at the earlystages of what's possible in data generally in
PR and comms, I do thinkthat JENAI gives us an opportunity to catch
up to other industries like marketings andmedia buying and playing around with data for
decades basically, and so now we'reI think, you know, I can
see a situation where maybe we throwin a few examples, a few articles
(18:11):
that highlight a client's crisis from youknow, let's say a five year period,
and then use an AI model tohelp kind of predict what crises may
come up based on a pr anarticle an advancement as a newsworthy item that
our clients talk to us about,so that we can start to understand a
(18:32):
little bit better how the past maybeinfluences our future actions. And I think
you can use that same exact philosophyfor content creation as well, like kind
of just understanding what you should beable to reasonably predict about a person's reaction
to a piece of content just basedon how they've reacted to other pieces of
(18:53):
content before. I mean, Ithink obviously we're still very early on in
that, but to my so theplaces that we were making earlier, the
more that we start to use thisstuff, the more creative we think of
using it. And I think thisis just one of those ways. The
data side of this, I thinkis what really really excites me, and
I think that's where a lot ofsmart organizations are starting to leverage it now.
(19:15):
Yeah, and it's interesting I thinkback over the course of my career
and it's always been exciting to watchthe convergence of major trends and themes.
So I early in my career Igot to watch the early advent of mobile
phone working and wireless, and thenthe early advent of the transformation of the
financial services industry into online and thensome of the really interesting technologies that were
(19:40):
in the physical world, like contactless, you know, like tapping to get
into the subway. One of theearliest examples that that was in Singapore and
the Singapore metro system. And thensuddenly you had this all come together into
the mobile phone. You needed iPhone, you needed the financial services industry to
come to a certain point, Youneeded certain other technologies RFID and others.
(20:00):
But when you converge together, suddenlyyou have mobile wallet and tap to pay
and Apple Pay and et cetera,et cetera. Right now, what you
just said, we are at aconvergence point of all the discussion that's been
had about big data. Remember whenthat was the term big data? And
then data takes me back exactly biglakes and pools of data that everybody was
(20:26):
talking about as if that was theanswer. No, that is actually the
problem. I have this data.What do I do to derive value.
Then we heard about machine learning,How will that help us? And then
we hear about predictive analysis, Well, predictive that sounds exciting. How does
that work? Now we're seeing theconvergence of all of this, And clearly
(20:47):
there are many professionals and industries thathave deeper into this, as you said,
that have already been unlocking this.But I think now it's the proliferation
of it across enterprises and even into the consumer realm that's so exciting.
And yeah, I agree with you. That's going to unlock value in ways
for our clients and for ourselves thatwe've only thought about in the past and
(21:10):
hoped for. As a leader ofa company with you know, one hundred,
one hundred and fifty two hundred pluspeople, how do you realistically think
about implementation of some of these usingsome of these use cases as examples.
I mean, cause you sit ina place where you're kind of getting a
thirty thousand foot view of the goingson in the operations of gns, But
(21:36):
you've also got to think of likepractical on the ground implementation too. So
where do you find the threads thatallow you to anchor some of this more
conceptual thought into like real tangible action. As an organizational leader but also a
practitioner, you know, I'm stillan active counselor and media and presentation trainer
and practitioner. I feel it's incumbentupon us to think at multiple levels at
(22:00):
one time. We need to thinkone hundred thousand foot as in, what
does this mean to society? Howwill this change how we live? What
does this mean to be human?What does it mean about authorship? How
do we understand the ethical dimensions ofhow humans will interact with this unbelievably powerful
technology, and can an agency likeours survive into the future. That sounds
(22:26):
this topic, but I mean thatvery seriously. What will our business look
like? What will our services looklike? How do we bring the best
of ourselves augmented by technology to bethe best partners and counselors. So that's
one hundred thousand foot level, Butthen you're right, I have to zoom
down onto the ground to say,how do we actually operationalize this and some
of the things you and I areinvived involved in, Kyle, with our
(22:48):
GENAI team here, it's going tobe very much about the big picture.
But then also what are the usecases, how do we separate them into
pillars, What are the pilot tests, how are people are really using it?
What are the ethical guidelines we needto put around this based on my
work with the PR Council, andhow do we both experiment and support business
(23:12):
model. So, you know,I don't know if you have any reactions
to that, but I think itrequires all of us to be very elastic
and flexible in our thinking. Gobig and then zoom in, I do.
I mean, you know, we'reabout to get into a conversation about
the industry adapting to some of thesechanges, and you know, I don't
(23:32):
want to spend too much time navalgazing. However, I do think that
you know, kind of pursue itto the title of this podcast. I
think the brand gravity around our agencyand probably about around a lot of legacy
agencies will probably need to shift,and probably, you know, it's worth
it to think of the ways inwhich we maybe need to adjust how we
(23:56):
brand ourselves. I think everything you'retalking about makes total sense. And you
know, having dedicated people here thatyou've picked to be at the forefront of
this experimentation and having and give themlike actual tangible tasks. It's paramount here.
But I even think the way thatwe talk about this agency, as
we start to blend some of thistechnology into our day to day, I
(24:18):
think that's really going to be what'snecessary for most organizations, really ourselves included,
you know, as we start tochange and adapt to some of these
some of these new techs and newways of doing things. Yeah, and
part of it will be I'm notdoing the same thing that I did thirty
years ago when I came into integratedmarketing communications at a very large agency person
(24:44):
Marstellar. And of course, yes, my role is different. I'm not
entry level now. But nobody andthis is the funny example, but there's
a billion of these. Nobody iscutting out press clips and measuring collumnches and
pasting them onto a piece of paper. That sounds now, But the reason
I say that is jobs changed,agency capabilities change, client needs change,
(25:07):
client organizations changed. Sometimes that changesfast and really painful and disruptive. Other
times it's such a slow arc thatsuddenly you wake up and say, my
god, how much our lives havechanged. I think if we can pivot
into what we expect to come inthe next year or so, and what
you know very practically, but alsobigger picture. I think that what I'm
(25:30):
going to be watching, both asa practitioner, as a colleague and as
a client counselor and as a leaderis where is the change going to be
fast and where is it will bea more steady organic arc where hey,
it's just getting baked in. Ohwe're unfolding capabilities. Oh we can work
faster versus Wow, we really needto shift what people are doing, like
(25:51):
we need to make that decision tomorrowor today. We need this tool,
this platform, And I think you'reright call it. It takes a lot
of intentional thought about and also whatis it that client organizations will need.
One of the most fascinating things I'vewatched over the years is which capabilities live
where and who feels they need them? Who is it that brought web development
(26:14):
in house agency or client side?And then when was it farmed out again
to partners who are specialized. Howmany people are on internally on a social
media team, how many are doingcontent internally at a client where are they
using an agency for that? Wheredo we begin to end? There's a
million answers to that question, butI think part of it for us is
also understanding where the human begins andends, where the machine begins and ends.
(26:37):
Conversation that came up in the townhall we were doing yesterday. Listen,
I think most people when taught,when you talk to them about this,
I think we'll probably have a somewhatfearful reaction at worst and casts one
at best. I think there's probablymerit to a blend of those two sentiments.
(27:00):
Honestly, however, I'll say this, the fact that we and other
agencies like US are starting to exploreand sign on pilots and partnerships, I
think that shows some of that thinkingas being shed. You know, caution
is justified to an extent. Ithink no one really knows what the next
five ten years are going to looklike when it comes to jobs, especially
in the comms industry. You know, I've seen a couple of studies.
(27:22):
I will not try to cite themhere, just google them, but I've
seen a couple of studies. Yeah, I could see a couple a couple
of studies that talk about the industriesmost that are probably going to be most
affected by generator of AIS preponderance PRComms marketing, writing, like all that
stuff. I mean, it's it'snear the top of the list, and
all of them not surprising. Ithink all that just means, though,
(27:45):
is that the ways in which wethink about how to use this stuff in
these advancements, I think you haveto. You have to, to your
point, move both with caution andwith intention, but you also have to
be sure curious enough. I lovethe phrase curiosity. I think curiosity is
one of the more redeeming characteristics anyonecan have. You got to be curious
(28:07):
enough to actually try some of thestuff for yourself, to my point earlier,
identify the ways in which you're usingit that could spark more esoteric ways
of using generative AI, and thenuse that as a guide to maybe on
a larger scale, what you canimplement and what actually maybe you need to
take more time to do. Yeah. Part of what I'd love to spark
(28:30):
in myself and others is the joyof this exploration and experimentation while being really
clear eyed about cautions and concerns andalso possible very difficult futures. If we
as a society and as human beingsdon't stay attentive to that, I think
we are at our best in thisfield, counselor's thought partners innovators we are
(28:57):
called on because we're not in theday to day every day with each of
our client organizations their talent, andthey're situated in the business that they're in.
We stand at a crossroads of manyindustries and that's supposed to be our
goal and our role, and wecan never lose sight of that. And
it's not a defensive posture at all. It's actually a really celebratory one because
(29:21):
it does celebrate curiosity and intellectual rigorand being open and cross pollination and multiple
industries and what are we learning.But we have to remember that our value
is to bring that spark back tothose who are contracting with us, you
know, spending their you know,valuable capital to bring us in as partners.
So if I look ahead to thefuture, you know, let's both
(29:44):
think for a minute about what arewe most excited about over the next like
one, two, three years.I'm pretty excited about AI everywhere. I'm
very excited about it being baked inin all kinds. I mean, there's
such an explosion of development and createactivity on the technology front, especially as
these platforms open source or allow folksto you know, create off of them,
(30:10):
and also as the larger entities allowenterprises to sort of create their own
large language models and you know,predictive models, et cetera. So that's
exciting, so that mass integration,and I'm also really excited in the next
year about really leaning into the placesthat we can make ourselves more efficient and
(30:33):
creative where things were a little bitrote before. It's always hard. You
get the most amazing talented young peoplewho come in and you're like, hey,
there's the stuff that you have todo that is a little bit rote.
But if we can make that morestrategic and fun and interesting and faster
and smarter, that they can thenadd value to places where that human instinct
(30:56):
is there. I think that's amazing. I mean, what are some of
the things that you're sited about.I mean, you heard me talk about
this at the beginning of the podcast, and it's been this way for a
while, but I really think thatthe biggest and most interesting advancements are probably
going to be in medicine. Iwant I hope that's the case, Kyle,
(31:18):
I really do. I mean,that's an amazing opportunity, man.
I think the diagnostic abilities of AIare probably its strongest suit. Its ability
to digest, find connections, buildon identify trends that are probably often missed
by humans. I think that createsso much potential for being able to find
(31:41):
diseases, being able to diagnose peopleearly, and to my point, earlier
give them a better chance of living. I think the less kind of I
guess life changing examples that I cancite. I love the ability to create
images. I think the Creative Spacesis obviously handering a little bit because of
(32:07):
this, and for good reason.You know, a lot of what the
writers and directors and the actors havebeen fighting over is about ownership of IP
and how things like General Vegui modelsare being fed. However, I see
it as a potential for expanded imagination. I recently used Dolly to give me
(32:30):
an idea for a tattoo, andI'm not expecting to walk into a tattoo
parlor with this exact thing. Infact, Dolly has a weird thing where
if you if you gave it myson's name, but it kept misspelling it
weirdly. Ad letters, remove letters, it was combined letters. Just keep
(32:50):
It's keeping us on our toes.It's making sure that we don't understand what
the hell is going on, Yes, exactly, but I had I had
that idea of you know, myson's name emerging from the water for years
and really couldn't properly articulate how itshould look. But this gives me at
(33:12):
least a starting point that I cantalk to an artist about to actually make
it something real, something tangible,something a motive for me. And I
think that's where a lot of Ithink smart creators are using it just as
an inspiration engine, like, oh, let me just spit this idea out
and see what it comes back with, and then maybe I can take that
and tweak it and change it justbecause I now have a physical representation of
(33:37):
something I was just thinking. Ithink that's really powerful. Our creative team,
and even folks beyond our formal creativeteam who are exercising their own creativity.
We have people at Gens to doso many different things, but our
creative team is really leaning into thisand understanding its edges and boundaries and pushing
those edges and blank page brainstorming.And also you know the enterprise piece,
(34:01):
the baked in piece, when platformslike Adobe bake some of this capability right
into the tools we're already using.That just is a game changer, right,
So you know, simple things likehey, there's a photograph with two
people and I need only one ofthem, and I'm going to have AI
erase them and fix the background andseconds what used to take some careful work
(34:24):
over maybe an hour or so toreally get it right. That is the
kind of removal of friction and speedthat then allows each individual here, each
professional, to bring even more ofthemselves to what we do, you know,
and that to me is really reallyexciting. I think that brings me
(34:44):
to the places as a counselor wherewe need to exercise thoughtfulness, caution,
advice. I'm still I used towork with ASCAP years ago the American Society
of Composers, Authors and Publishers,and I was very involved with digital copyright
issues in the early days of CreativeCommons and post napster, and this world
(35:07):
now is supercharged some of the issueslike the rights of creators, the proliferation
and digital of IP ownership payment.I think we as agency people need to
keep intellectual property law, protection ofcreators, protection of people's images, and
(35:28):
also authentic representations of things deep fakes, misinformation is definitely a concern to me.
I think you'd be completely Pollyanna andblind not to be concerned about.
As you said, what are thechoices that individual people or groups are going
to make on how to use technologythat is this powerful? So as we
come into an electioneer, as wetry to advise our clients and ourselves and
(35:52):
what proper use is, I wantto make sure that we're looking at this
through an ethical lens and that wenever lose in our excite meant that we
also never lose the other side ofthe coin, which is what's a responsible
and intentional use of this technology.I mean, what's what are your thoughts
on that? Yeah, you know, I when I think about policy,
(36:13):
it is always really really nuanced thoughtfor me, only because everyone whenever you
write a new policy, especially fora policy for something that nobody understands one
hundred percent and that is constantly changing. I think we're probably still dealing with
some of this with social media,honestly. I mean, it requires a
(36:34):
certain level of understanding, and Ithink when I think about you know,
I know we'll get into the futurea little bit. But when I think
about the future, I think aboutthe ways in which people are going to
try to regulate AI and whether ornot the regulations are going to do more
harm than good as far as ourability to understand how best to use it
with intention like and I don't knowthat I like, I'm making some wild
(37:00):
assumptions here, obviously, but Ido think that there's enough evidence in the
ways that policy has been written forsocial media that we you know, you
run the risk of not including likenuanced thought into how we leverage AI if
you kind of are not just quickto advance it but also quick to overregulate
(37:23):
it. You know. I don'twant to sound like a deregulation like uh
mayven here, but I'm just I'mjust bullish on on advancement. And I
think that the more you have peopleor a more diverse array of people who
are willing to experiment with it,much like I said about more creative ways
to use it, I think youcome up with more creative and more nuanced
(37:47):
ways to manage how to ethically useit. You know, I don't think
any policy can stay stagnant. Ithink even ours at GNS, which is
a good one, I think willprobably need to change next year as this
technology becomes more ubiquitous and it changesitself, and we're going to have to
(38:07):
find different ways to think about whatexperimentation looks like and get more comfortable with
how things that we maybe have feltcomfortable doing as humans can either be come
either obsolete or heavily augmented. Ourhumanity can be augmented using some of the
(38:28):
creativity that this might unlock for people. I think you're very right. The
way I would phrase it is thatregulation in this space is likely to lag.
That's why it's incumbent upon us ascounselors to our clients and experts in
our field to create both the environmentfor experimentation, pushing opening up, transforming
(38:52):
how we work, but also understandingwhat we think are the proper guide rails
and what we feel is an ethicallens on the application of generative AI.
I think that's going to be veryvery important. What what's your advice for
marcom's and PR professionals to stay aheadand just we we cover the whole integrated
(39:13):
marketing communications landscape. So what areyou most hoping that even our own colleagues
do in the future. I mean, honestly, I think experimentation is key
I think getting and getting access toand using the most advanced versions, the
advanced models, you know, Ithink a lot of people still use GPT
(39:34):
three and a half at three pointfive, and that is kind of their
baseline baseline of knowledge for what AIkind of is. And when you actually
look at GPT four even even claudeto an extent and some of the other
platforms that exist that are coming intocoming online now, it's way more advanced,
(39:57):
you know, it's way smarter,it's it's way easy to kind of
get at some useful responses. Youknow. I've even started using GPT for
as like the facto replacement for Googleright now. You know, if you
write your prompts the right way,you can get a detailed answer on anything,
(40:17):
way more detailed than what you wouldget from Google, because Google's just
a collection, like a list ofwebsites, as opposed to an articulation and
explanation of why something is with citations, which is what you would get from
chat EPT. So I would justencourage people in the marcoms industry to experiment
with it, not just in promptwriting, not just in research, but
(40:40):
in the ways that you can morereadily show off tone and voice you can
ask AI to help you identify withthe thesis of a pressure release of a
blog post, of a white paperis to make sure that your ideas are
actually coalescing into something useful. AndI think that just some of the things
(41:06):
that I was talking about earlier withcrisis prediction, I think I just thought
of this, Like one way thatyou could I can conceivably think of using
AI right now is to take anarticle about a crisis and maybe start playing
with your prompts to see if therewas a way this crisis could have been
predicted, Like what ways could acrisis like this be prevented? And then
(41:30):
maybe start building content off of thoseideas. I mean, but that only
comes with experimentation, right, LikeI think you have to just start playing
with it. Yeah, I thinkyou're right. Yeah, And I would
my advice to colleagues in our industryand really beyond experimentation, but then also
really lean into what we are talentedat in this industry, which is critical
(41:55):
and discerning, thinking what is thesource? Can we go back and verify
something in a world where AI isstill suffering from hallucinations and it will get
better over time, How do weask ourselves, how do I know this
is right? You know? Whatdo I think about this? And also
really lean into the collaboration you talkedabout augmented humanity. I love hearing people
(42:21):
talk about what that could be inthe future, and I think it goes
in a lot of different directions,including in the physical world. But how
do you take your skill as awriter who can iterate on different drafts?
Who don't you don't make as humanas a human being? The first thing
you write isn't the final draft.Usually you're going to iterate and you're going
to learn something and what you intendto write may not be what the final
(42:45):
product ends up being. So howdo you use AI in the machine for
lack of a better word, tohelp you iterate and use and lean into
and open up more space for whatmakes us truly human? So to finish
off today, because this conversation,as we said, could go on forever
at this point on these topics.There's a lot of prognosticating out there,
(43:07):
Kyle. There's a lot of peoplewho have a lot of things to say,
and I guess we're two of themas well. So I think we
should call what is the pronostication that'sBS and what is not BS. I
think that's a good way to end. So I'll start with one thing that
I think is a little bit ofBS, which is what I'm calling the
(43:29):
utopic dystopic binary, meaning it's eitherall awesome or it's all the matrix and
it's all I robot and they're goingto destroy humanity. Right. So my
feeling about people who have prognosticated aboutour industry over the years, as in
the press release, is dead.All agencies are going down. There's never
(43:51):
going to be any stockbrokers. Again, I've heard too many of these over
the years. What I usually findis that the binary is the zero sum
thinking is BS. The truth isusually in the middle, and usually what
will happen is we will bring thebest and worst of ourselves to it.
That's right. I mean, you'respot on. I don't think you can
(44:12):
go to extreme in either direction becausethat leaves you way open to missing a
lot of really interesting, nuanced things. So I agree with you total BS.
What's a BS for me is andI think you've heard a lot of
people say this, the fear ofhuman obsolescence by AI. Now, do
(44:32):
I think that there is some veryobvious negative outcomes that are possible with generator
of AI gone unchecked. Of course, I'd be foolish not to. However,
my thinking is, and this hasbeen repeated ad nauseum by a lot,
a lot of people who are alot smarter than I am, the
most likely scenario is that people whodon't use AI are going to be replaced.
(44:57):
Just like with any new technology,the people who learn it, who
adapt to it, who integrate itinto their day to day experience, often
accelerate, either professionally, socially,whatever have you, at a much faster
rate than those who don't. Notto say that that it's impossible, but
I certainly don't believe that human obsolescenceis on the horizon. What I do
(45:21):
think is that the world that weknow, the world that we're comfortable with
now that's probably gone forever, butit will just give rise to a new
comfort, a new normal, whichwe should all be familiar with after COVID.
Honestly, I think that's really Yeah, it's true. We're having to
go through a lot of change andembracing it and being open to it.
(45:43):
So final advice, learn, self, educate, experiment, and we're going
to keep going on that I knowhere and hopefully I just love learning.
So for me, it's an excitingtime to be leading an organization but also
still doing the tasks that we loveto do. So Kyle, thank you,
and we really appreciate those who tunedin. This is Building Brand Gravity
(46:05):
and we will see you back forour next set of episodes in twenty twenty
four d I'm agree with you here, guys. We are GNS Business Communications.
We are a team of media strategists, storytellers, and engagement experts who
meet you at the intersection of businessand communications. To learn more, visit
gscommunications dot com. You are listeningto Building Brand Gravity attracting people into your
(46:31):
orbit, a GNS Business Communications podcast. Keep connected with us by subscribing to
the show in your favorite podcast player. If you like what you've heard,
please rate the show that helps usto keep delivering the latest in industry influence.
Thanks for listening. Until next time.
Hello, Building Brand Gravity Listeners,and today's special episode, we're actually going
to revisit our December discussion on theYear in AI for twenty twenty three,
so the year that truly showcased therapid evolution and impact of artificial intelligence in
various spheres. If you recall lastDecember, we marveled at the accelerating pace
of AI advancements, a trend thatcontinues to shape our digital and real world
(00:25):
interactions profoundly. In fact, onekey takeaway was that creativity need not be
stifled by AI, rather it couldbe augmented. As we've moved further into
twenty twenty four, this blend ofhuman ingenuity and artificial intelligence has only grown
more seamless, opening new avenues forcreative problem solving across industries. We also
(00:45):
discussed the role of generative AI asa tool for enhancing humor interactions, particularly
in challenging scenarios such as conversation negotiations. This application remains incredibly relevant as more
professionals adopt to AI to simulate andprepare for important coome stations and in the
realm of communications of public relations ourwheelhouse. Of course, AI's capacity for
(01:06):
data analysis and insight generation was ahot topic, and this area has seen
substantial growth, demonstrating AI's potential tolink communication efforts directly to strategic business outcomes,
a trend that continues to gain lament. A few other exciting developments from
the AI frontier that came online sinceour last conversation. One that I'm really
(01:26):
excited about. Multimobile AI has takena significant leap forward, becoming now more
viable and integrated with consumer products.Look no further than the Meta and Ray
banned sunglasses that have just seen theirfirst upgrade integrating multimobial AI into their software.
Our creative professionals have access now toSora ai, which is a video
(01:49):
AI platform, So now it's emergedas a groundbreaking tool for videographers and motion
designers which enhance how they at leastthey claim can birk storage life. And
lastly, this is a normal one, but the Eraser platform is now revolutionizing
the way software developers and UAX developersare mapping out customer journeys, making it
simpler, more intuitive. We'll seeif that actually comes to their time as
(02:12):
so as we look ahead at thelandscape that AI remains dynamic every evolving,
and although this conversation that you're aboutto listen to happened in December, I
really think that everything's said here stillfeels relevant and prescient. Now hope you
enjoy it. You are listening toBuilding Brand Gravity Attracting People into Your Orbit,
(02:35):
a GNS Business Communications podcast. Thisis a show for communications pros across
industries looking to gain an inside ofview into industry influence. You're about to
hear a conversation with leading industry professionalstalking about the importance of building business impact
through sound brand strategy. Let's getinto the show. Hey, everybody,
(03:00):
welcome to Building Brand Gravity. Myname is Ann Green. I'm a principle
in managing director here at g ANDSBusiness Communications and soon to be CEO here
at the agency, and I amvery excited to be curating a conversation with
the wonderful Kyle Turner, who isour Digital Growth Director. Kyle. Welcome,
Hello, Hello, glad to behere. Hello, Hello, So
(03:23):
Kyle, we're here to talk aboutthe year in Generative AI. It has
been a year, it has,and I would say it feels like one
hundred years since the Moniker chat GPTfirst exploded into our consciousness just last November
twenty twenty. Now, kudos tothose who already knew all about it long
before. I know you're out there, but for most of society it was
(03:46):
last November. And it's kind ofamazing to live through a moment when a
new tech utterly captures all aspects ofour imagination and really simultaneously shifts conversations everywhere
in buses, business world, techworld, academia and also like your mom
is asking you about it, soyou know, Kyle, I'm sure you're
having lots of conversations with family memberstoo. And as we close out twenty
(04:11):
twenty three, and the reason wewanted to talk today is the big question
for me is, as long timeintegrated marketing communications practitioner and a counselor and
an organizational leader, where are wenow? And then where is this going?
And how fast? So I wouldventure to guess that there's about sixteen
million podcasts of this kind looking atJENII at the end of the year,
(04:32):
and Kyle and I do not havethe energy nor the time to recap every
advance that's happened in Generative AI intotwenty twenty three. But I think our
goal today is to like take oneanother's temperature on where AI is now,
the big advances run down how ourindustry integrated marketing, communications and all of
(04:54):
its forms has started to learn andadapt and incorporate and talk a little bit
about what we see what's coming forthe year ahead, including I think,
Kyle, you said what is BSand what is not BS? So does
that sound good to you, Kyle? I'm excited to get into that for
sure. Yeah, exactly. Sojust to start it off, Kyle,
(05:14):
first question for you, what's oneof the big technological advances in jen AI
from twenty twenty three that really madeyou stop in your tracks or get interested?
Yeah, I've been seeing a lotin this space, as I'm sure
you have to me. What stoppedme in my tracks? I saw earlier
this year I was talking with oneof our colleagues here an AI model was
(05:39):
used to spot pancreatic cancer and highrisk individuals up to three years before diagnosis.
Now this follows a similar story Isaw maybe about four years ago of
an AI model using being used tospot brain cancer using blood samples. So
what does that say to me?It's we're at the precipice of I think
(06:01):
some really interesting and life changing andin some ways probably life affirming ways that
I think AI can start to changethe way that we do medicine. This
kind of predictive stuff, which we'llprobably get into later a few times,
is where I find the most excitement. I think as a cancer survivor especially,
you could make the argument that despitethe research and the dollars that have
(06:25):
been poured into the cancer spaces,we're only now maybe the last like four
or five years, starting to seesome real sea change in the way that
cancer is treated diagnosed, and Ithink AI represents just yet another way that
we can get to diagnoses faster andhopefully give more people a chance to live
a life that they want. Yeah, it's interesting you said that because having
(06:49):
had former clients working in the cancerspace like Memorials and Cuttering. There was
so much talk about IBM Watson inthe early days and maybe overhype of what
it's capabilities would be in the cancerspace, and when it didn't immediately deliver
on the dream that we saw outthere, there was almost like this huge
(07:10):
skepticism to say, oh, lookit's overhyped, it doesn't work. Meanwhile,
I think the truer thing was.Those are some of the early tests
and learnings, very early of AIin that space. Obviously, IBM has
Watson X now they're very advanced inthis area. But it is interesting to
see now, and you and Ihave been around long enough, I certainly
(07:31):
have to see a lot of techcycles. There's stuff that in the early
blushes is not going to fully makeit, and people kind of say eh,
but then it's cooking along the wholeway. So I think that's an
exciting one. I mean, Ithink for me, the thing that blew
me away this year is not maybeany one advance. It's just the speed
(07:51):
of it all and how listening toeven deep experts who've been in the development
realm of AI many years talk abouthow much exponentially faster this is coming now
than they had seen before. Andalso just it is, as I said
earlier, really wild to be botha human being and a professional around and
(08:18):
awake and alert and mindful when thelightning bolt hits, and everybody says,
I don't know what to make ofthis, but it feels so different and
powerful. So I think I thinkthat's a really really really big one,
you know, in terms of sowe've talked about sort of the big picture,
like what's that thing that really stoppedus in our tracks. But there's
(08:39):
a lot of milestones and breakthroughs happeningthat have started to certainly affect our industry.
You know, I'll start on thatone. For me, it's watching
Ai be baked and everywhere, youknow, very very quickly. We went
from the large language models, youknow, and open Ai made a very
deliberate decision to release that to thepublic, and it's actually really interesting to
see the coverage the scenes after thatwhole insanity. That's kind of getting more
(09:03):
into how the soup was made thereand why open ai decided to release chat
GPT when it did. But weknew very early on that it needed to
be baked into enterprise products that we'realready using. And the speed with which
that's happening has been really really strikingme. What has struck you on some
of the front in terms of actualmilestones and things being released this year?
(09:24):
You know, when you said thespeed is striking you, I wanted to
ask why you were surprised about that, And I only asked because of this.
I remember reading long ago, andI used to work in media planning
and buying. I saw a chargeI'm sure you've seen it too, that
shows the speed at which different technologicaladvancement hit one million users. I think
(09:48):
by the time you get to Facebook, that happened in like a week,
you know, starting with like radio, which took you know, five ten
years. You know, Moore's law. Is it Moore's law that dictates like
change accelerates with change. I thinkI've been I've been on this boat and
for so long I've been waiting forto see the practical uses of generative AI,
(10:13):
and I guess that's what's exciting methe most. You know, you
can say striking too. I amstarting to be a lot more interested or
a lot less interested. I'll startthere with the projections of what jennai could
be, and way more interested withthe like practical day to day uses of
it. Now I've told you this. The more that I use platforms like
(10:35):
Dolly or gpt for or claud orwhatever it is, the more creative ways
I think of using it. AndI think that also speaks to the ways
that jenai is changing right now.To your point about the speed, I
think since Sam, especially since likesomebody like Sam Altman has been kind of
empowered by the staff at open Ai. I only think that we're I mean,
(11:01):
just going to continue to accelerate atthis point, and we're going to
have to get smarter, much fasterabout the ways in which we protect our
ethics when using this stuff, becauseit's I think the practical uses are going
to expand justice exponentially as the technologyitself is. Yeah, you're so right,
and I think you're right to askme that question. I'm like,
(11:22):
why should be surprised at how fastthings develop the curve? Like if I
think about one of the last seismicshifts, which was really the right to
web, the meaning WordPress, typepad, I don't need to code,
the web is open to me Webone. Yeah, and then social media.
(11:43):
That arc of adoption of process change, of societal change happened at a
certain speed. This one's coming evenfaster. I think something you just said.
Kyle and I had a session internallyyesterday here at GNS with many many
of our colleagues just to talk aboutthe state of jen Ai, what we're
seeing, what it's baked into now, what our roadmap is, et cetera.
(12:09):
But we had a lot of funwith prompts in the chat, prompts
for the human beings, not forthe AI, and we are asking folks
to share some of the uses theydo at work or at home. And
you're right, Kyle, like thediversity and creativity and in some cases the
total randomness. But you're like,seriously, you thought to do that?
That's so random, but it's sosmart that I was kind of stunned.
(12:33):
And it was funny in the chatto see other of our colleagues being like,
WHOA, I never thought of allthese things, so that to me,
I think something came to my mind. It's like you light a sparkler,
you know, at fourth of July, and all these sparks start to
fly off of it. That's whatit felt like watching the chat, like
all this creativity and energy that justseems to feed on itself. And maybe
(12:56):
that sounds a little bit like theexperience you're having. Oh, oh for
sure, I think like kind ofcrystallized for me. I started using it
a while ago, maybe a coupleof weeks ago, to help me draft
And this is whil to even admitthis, but I asked it to help
me draft a conversation with my fiveyear old because our zones are changing here,
(13:20):
so his school that he's in nowis not going to be a school
he will be able to attend withoutsome alternate, some extenuating circumstances next year.
So I asked chat GPT GPT fourspecifically, like, give me the
draft of a conversation that explains toa five year old why he has to
change schools in a year from aschool he doesn't like or he that he
(13:43):
likes a lot. And I thoughtthat the way that this thing framed up
a conversation like this was fascinating tome, Like not something I would have
thought of doing six months ago.However, and this is why I'm being
specific about citing GPT, for GPTfour is a more advanced version of the
(14:03):
open aas GPT, so it isa little smarter, a lot smarter honestly
about picking up on cues and understandingprompts than three point five was. It
was fascinating. I thought that theway that it framed this up, obviously
from the perspective of the parent,it framed it up as a situation on
(14:24):
a playground. There these are waysin which I had not thought of using
it. But helping you navigate realhuman interactions, not replacing them, but
kind of giving you a way toframe your mind around potentially difficult conversations.
I think sounds it sounds maybe thistopic in some ways, but to me
(14:46):
it is almost therapeutic. It givesyou a way to kind of get your
thoughts out, help you organize them, and then perhaps come up with a
more productive way of having a conversationthat perhaps may have been harder to have
previously. Kind of primes you forthat. That's such a fascinating example.
And see, that's just another thingof like wow, you know, just
(15:07):
see experiments, see what it does. It reminds me. You know,
in the discussion with our colleagues yesterday, a big theme came out, which
is helping you think about things ina fresh way or maybe coming at it
from a different corner. And ifyou look at Deep Mind and their experiments
with Alpha Go, you know,which built on what IBM did with chess
(15:28):
earlier, you had this question ofcould a machine ever beat you know,
the elite go players around the world, and everybody knows the story now it
did because it tried to move.That just was so atypical that that a
player that was decades and generations ofhuman knowledge that wasn't the way a master
would play the game, And it'sthat reminds me that's like it's taking a
(15:50):
conversation that you, as a parent, we usually approach in like a set
variety of ways, and bringing itinto a totally different context to bring it
into our industry, the marcom industry. I feel like in talking to many
agencies and many colleagues and many clientside folks over the course of the year,
(16:11):
because it's such a top I mean, all of us are talking about
it all the time. How areyou using it? What are you doing?
The real theme right now this yearis experimentation to implementation, and I
use implementation loosely because it's not asfully realized in many ways as it will
be. I mean that's obvious rightnow, but people are trying to put
the rubber on the road in termsof how are we going to use this.
(16:33):
So, if you look back attwenty twenty three, Kyle, what
are some of the early implementations you'vebeen seeing in our industry or contexts that
have been interesting to you? Well, you know, I think we're still
at the nascent stages of what's possiblein PR, PR and comms for JENNAI,
I see the most readily applicable waysto use jenni is would be in
(17:00):
data and analytics. I think themore that you are leveraging data to make
decisions, the more help you willlikely need to interpret that data, especially
now as we are getting access tomore and more information. One of the
ways that we are or that certainlythat I am trying to leverage jen ai
(17:21):
is to help with social media analysis, is to help with sentiment analysis.
I think most of these tools area lot smarter than tools like netbace were,
and that when they were using earlyversions of AI to kind of help
or machine learning to kind of helpunderstand how sentiment is coming through in people's
commentary on social media. We're ina much smarter place now, and though
(17:45):
we may be still at the earlystages of what's possible in data generally in
PR and comms, I do thinkthat JENAI gives us an opportunity to catch
up to other industries like marketings andmedia buying and playing around with data for
decades basically, and so now we'reI think, you know, I can
see a situation where maybe we throwin a few examples, a few articles
(18:11):
that highlight a client's crisis from youknow, let's say a five year period,
and then use an AI model tohelp kind of predict what crises may
come up based on a pr anarticle an advancement as a newsworthy item that
our clients talk to us about,so that we can start to understand a
(18:32):
little bit better how the past maybeinfluences our future actions. And I think
you can use that same exact philosophyfor content creation as well, like kind
of just understanding what you should beable to reasonably predict about a person's reaction
to a piece of content just basedon how they've reacted to other pieces of
(18:53):
content before. I mean, Ithink obviously we're still very early on in
that, but to my so theplaces that we were making earlier, the
more that we start to use thisstuff, the more creative we think of
using it. And I think thisis just one of those ways. The
data side of this, I thinkis what really really excites me, and
I think that's where a lot ofsmart organizations are starting to leverage it now.
(19:15):
Yeah, and it's interesting I thinkback over the course of my career
and it's always been exciting to watchthe convergence of major trends and themes.
So I early in my career Igot to watch the early advent of mobile
phone working and wireless, and thenthe early advent of the transformation of the
financial services industry into online and thensome of the really interesting technologies that were
(19:40):
in the physical world, like contactless, you know, like tapping to get
into the subway. One of theearliest examples that that was in Singapore and
the Singapore metro system. And thensuddenly you had this all come together into
the mobile phone. You needed iPhone, you needed the financial services industry to
come to a certain point, Youneeded certain other technologies RFID and others.
(20:00):
But when you converge together, suddenlyyou have mobile wallet and tap to pay
and Apple Pay and et cetera,et cetera. Right now, what you
just said, we are at aconvergence point of all the discussion that's been
had about big data. Remember whenthat was the term big data? And
then data takes me back exactly biglakes and pools of data that everybody was
(20:26):
talking about as if that was theanswer. No, that is actually the
problem. I have this data.What do I do to derive value.
Then we heard about machine learning,How will that help us? And then
we hear about predictive analysis, Well, predictive that sounds exciting. How does
that work? Now we're seeing theconvergence of all of this, And clearly
(20:47):
there are many professionals and industries thathave deeper into this, as you said,
that have already been unlocking this.But I think now it's the proliferation
of it across enterprises and even into the consumer realm that's so exciting.
And yeah, I agree with you. That's going to unlock value in ways
for our clients and for ourselves thatwe've only thought about in the past and
(21:10):
hoped for. As a leader ofa company with you know, one hundred,
one hundred and fifty two hundred pluspeople, how do you realistically think
about implementation of some of these usingsome of these use cases as examples.
I mean, cause you sit ina place where you're kind of getting a
thirty thousand foot view of the goingson in the operations of gns, But
(21:36):
you've also got to think of likepractical on the ground implementation too. So
where do you find the threads thatallow you to anchor some of this more
conceptual thought into like real tangible action. As an organizational leader but also a
practitioner, you know, I'm stillan active counselor and media and presentation trainer
and practitioner. I feel it's incumbentupon us to think at multiple levels at
(22:00):
one time. We need to thinkone hundred thousand foot as in, what
does this mean to society? Howwill this change how we live? What
does this mean to be human?What does it mean about authorship? How
do we understand the ethical dimensions ofhow humans will interact with this unbelievably powerful
technology, and can an agency likeours survive into the future. That sounds
(22:26):
this topic, but I mean thatvery seriously. What will our business look
like? What will our services looklike? How do we bring the best
of ourselves augmented by technology to bethe best partners and counselors. So that's
one hundred thousand foot level, Butthen you're right, I have to zoom
down onto the ground to say,how do we actually operationalize this and some
of the things you and I areinvived involved in, Kyle, with our
(22:48):
GENAI team here, it's going tobe very much about the big picture.
But then also what are the usecases, how do we separate them into
pillars, What are the pilot tests, how are people are really using it?
What are the ethical guidelines we needto put around this based on my
work with the PR Council, andhow do we both experiment and support business
(23:12):
model. So, you know,I don't know if you have any reactions
to that, but I think itrequires all of us to be very elastic
and flexible in our thinking. Gobig and then zoom in, I do.
I mean, you know, we'reabout to get into a conversation about
the industry adapting to some of thesechanges, and you know, I don't
(23:32):
want to spend too much time navalgazing. However, I do think that
you know, kind of pursue itto the title of this podcast. I
think the brand gravity around our agencyand probably about around a lot of legacy
agencies will probably need to shift,and probably, you know, it's worth
it to think of the ways inwhich we maybe need to adjust how we
(23:56):
brand ourselves. I think everything you'retalking about makes total sense. And you
know, having dedicated people here thatyou've picked to be at the forefront of
this experimentation and having and give themlike actual tangible tasks. It's paramount here.
But I even think the way thatwe talk about this agency, as
we start to blend some of thistechnology into our day to day, I
(24:18):
think that's really going to be what'snecessary for most organizations, really ourselves included,
you know, as we start tochange and adapt to some of these
some of these new techs and newways of doing things. Yeah, and
part of it will be I'm notdoing the same thing that I did thirty
years ago when I came into integratedmarketing communications at a very large agency person
(24:44):
Marstellar. And of course, yes, my role is different. I'm not
entry level now. But nobody andthis is the funny example, but there's
a billion of these. Nobody iscutting out press clips and measuring collumnches and
pasting them onto a piece of paper. That sounds now, But the reason
I say that is jobs changed,agency capabilities change, client needs change,
(25:07):
client organizations changed. Sometimes that changesfast and really painful and disruptive. Other
times it's such a slow arc thatsuddenly you wake up and say, my
god, how much our lives havechanged. I think if we can pivot
into what we expect to come inthe next year or so, and what
you know very practically, but alsobigger picture. I think that what I'm
(25:30):
going to be watching, both asa practitioner, as a colleague and as
a client counselor and as a leaderis where is the change going to be
fast and where is it will bea more steady organic arc where hey,
it's just getting baked in. Ohwe're unfolding capabilities. Oh we can work
faster versus Wow, we really needto shift what people are doing, like
(25:51):
we need to make that decision tomorrowor today. We need this tool,
this platform, And I think you'reright call it. It takes a lot
of intentional thought about and also whatis it that client organizations will need.
One of the most fascinating things I'vewatched over the years is which capabilities live
where and who feels they need them? Who is it that brought web development
(26:14):
in house agency or client side?And then when was it farmed out again
to partners who are specialized. Howmany people are on internally on a social
media team, how many are doingcontent internally at a client where are they
using an agency for that? Wheredo we begin to end? There's a
million answers to that question, butI think part of it for us is
also understanding where the human begins andends, where the machine begins and ends.
(26:37):
Conversation that came up in the townhall we were doing yesterday. Listen,
I think most people when taught,when you talk to them about this,
I think we'll probably have a somewhatfearful reaction at worst and casts one
at best. I think there's probablymerit to a blend of those two sentiments.
(27:00):
Honestly, however, I'll say this, the fact that we and other
agencies like US are starting to exploreand sign on pilots and partnerships, I
think that shows some of that thinkingas being shed. You know, caution
is justified to an extent. Ithink no one really knows what the next
five ten years are going to looklike when it comes to jobs, especially
in the comms industry. You know, I've seen a couple of studies.
(27:22):
I will not try to cite themhere, just google them, but I've
seen a couple of studies. Yeah, I could see a couple a couple
of studies that talk about the industriesmost that are probably going to be most
affected by generator of AIS preponderance PRComms marketing, writing, like all that
stuff. I mean, it's it'snear the top of the list, and
all of them not surprising. Ithink all that just means, though,
(27:45):
is that the ways in which wethink about how to use this stuff in
these advancements, I think you haveto. You have to, to your
point, move both with caution andwith intention, but you also have to
be sure curious enough. I lovethe phrase curiosity. I think curiosity is
one of the more redeeming characteristics anyonecan have. You got to be curious
(28:07):
enough to actually try some of thestuff for yourself, to my point earlier,
identify the ways in which you're usingit that could spark more esoteric ways
of using generative AI, and thenuse that as a guide to maybe on
a larger scale, what you canimplement and what actually maybe you need to
take more time to do. Yeah. Part of what I'd love to spark
(28:30):
in myself and others is the joyof this exploration and experimentation while being really
clear eyed about cautions and concerns andalso possible very difficult futures. If we
as a society and as human beingsdon't stay attentive to that, I think
we are at our best in thisfield, counselor's thought partners innovators we are
(28:57):
called on because we're not in theday to day every day with each of
our client organizations their talent, andthey're situated in the business that they're in.
We stand at a crossroads of manyindustries and that's supposed to be our
goal and our role, and wecan never lose sight of that. And
it's not a defensive posture at all. It's actually a really celebratory one because
(29:21):
it does celebrate curiosity and intellectual rigorand being open and cross pollination and multiple
industries and what are we learning.But we have to remember that our value
is to bring that spark back tothose who are contracting with us, you
know, spending their you know,valuable capital to bring us in as partners.
So if I look ahead to thefuture, you know, let's both
(29:44):
think for a minute about what arewe most excited about over the next like
one, two, three years.I'm pretty excited about AI everywhere. I'm
very excited about it being baked inin all kinds. I mean, there's
such an explosion of development and createactivity on the technology front, especially as
these platforms open source or allow folksto you know, create off of them,
(30:10):
and also as the larger entities allowenterprises to sort of create their own
large language models and you know,predictive models, et cetera. So that's
exciting, so that mass integration,and I'm also really excited in the next
year about really leaning into the placesthat we can make ourselves more efficient and
(30:33):
creative where things were a little bitrote before. It's always hard. You
get the most amazing talented young peoplewho come in and you're like, hey,
there's the stuff that you have todo that is a little bit rote.
But if we can make that morestrategic and fun and interesting and faster
and smarter, that they can thenadd value to places where that human instinct
(30:56):
is there. I think that's amazing. I mean, what are some of
the things that you're sited about.I mean, you heard me talk about
this at the beginning of the podcast, and it's been this way for a
while, but I really think thatthe biggest and most interesting advancements are probably
going to be in medicine. Iwant I hope that's the case, Kyle,
(31:18):
I really do. I mean,that's an amazing opportunity, man.
I think the diagnostic abilities of AIare probably its strongest suit. Its ability
to digest, find connections, buildon identify trends that are probably often missed
by humans. I think that createsso much potential for being able to find
(31:41):
diseases, being able to diagnose peopleearly, and to my point, earlier
give them a better chance of living. I think the less kind of I
guess life changing examples that I cancite. I love the ability to create
images. I think the Creative Spacesis obviously handering a little bit because of
(32:07):
this, and for good reason.You know, a lot of what the
writers and directors and the actors havebeen fighting over is about ownership of IP
and how things like General Vegui modelsare being fed. However, I see
it as a potential for expanded imagination. I recently used Dolly to give me
(32:30):
an idea for a tattoo, andI'm not expecting to walk into a tattoo
parlor with this exact thing. Infact, Dolly has a weird thing where
if you if you gave it myson's name, but it kept misspelling it
weirdly. Ad letters, remove letters, it was combined letters. Just keep
(32:50):
It's keeping us on our toes.It's making sure that we don't understand what
the hell is going on, Yes, exactly, but I had I had
that idea of you know, myson's name emerging from the water for years
and really couldn't properly articulate how itshould look. But this gives me at
(33:12):
least a starting point that I cantalk to an artist about to actually make
it something real, something tangible,something a motive for me. And I
think that's where a lot of Ithink smart creators are using it just as
an inspiration engine, like, oh, let me just spit this idea out
and see what it comes back with, and then maybe I can take that
and tweak it and change it justbecause I now have a physical representation of
(33:37):
something I was just thinking. Ithink that's really powerful. Our creative team,
and even folks beyond our formal creativeteam who are exercising their own creativity.
We have people at Gens to doso many different things, but our
creative team is really leaning into thisand understanding its edges and boundaries and pushing
those edges and blank page brainstorming.And also you know the enterprise piece,
(34:01):
the baked in piece, when platformslike Adobe bake some of this capability right
into the tools we're already using.That just is a game changer, right,
So you know, simple things likehey, there's a photograph with two
people and I need only one ofthem, and I'm going to have AI
erase them and fix the background andseconds what used to take some careful work
(34:24):
over maybe an hour or so toreally get it right. That is the
kind of removal of friction and speedthat then allows each individual here, each
professional, to bring even more ofthemselves to what we do, you know,
and that to me is really reallyexciting. I think that brings me
(34:44):
to the places as a counselor wherewe need to exercise thoughtfulness, caution,
advice. I'm still I used towork with ASCAP years ago the American Society
of Composers, Authors and Publishers,and I was very involved with digital copyright
issues in the early days of CreativeCommons and post napster, and this world
(35:07):
now is supercharged some of the issueslike the rights of creators, the proliferation
and digital of IP ownership payment.I think we as agency people need to
keep intellectual property law, protection ofcreators, protection of people's images, and
(35:28):
also authentic representations of things deep fakes, misinformation is definitely a concern to me.
I think you'd be completely Pollyanna andblind not to be concerned about.
As you said, what are thechoices that individual people or groups are going
to make on how to use technologythat is this powerful? So as we
come into an electioneer, as wetry to advise our clients and ourselves and
(35:52):
what proper use is, I wantto make sure that we're looking at this
through an ethical lens and that wenever lose in our excite meant that we
also never lose the other side ofthe coin, which is what's a responsible
and intentional use of this technology.I mean, what's what are your thoughts
on that? Yeah, you know, I when I think about policy,
(36:13):
it is always really really nuanced thoughtfor me, only because everyone whenever you
write a new policy, especially fora policy for something that nobody understands one
hundred percent and that is constantly changing. I think we're probably still dealing with
some of this with social media,honestly. I mean, it requires a
(36:34):
certain level of understanding, and Ithink when I think about you know,
I know we'll get into the futurea little bit. But when I think
about the future, I think aboutthe ways in which people are going to
try to regulate AI and whether ornot the regulations are going to do more
harm than good as far as ourability to understand how best to use it
with intention like and I don't knowthat I like, I'm making some wild
(37:00):
assumptions here, obviously, but Ido think that there's enough evidence in the
ways that policy has been written forsocial media that we you know, you
run the risk of not including likenuanced thought into how we leverage AI if
you kind of are not just quickto advance it but also quick to overregulate
(37:23):
it. You know. I don'twant to sound like a deregulation like uh
mayven here, but I'm just I'mjust bullish on on advancement. And I
think that the more you have peopleor a more diverse array of people who
are willing to experiment with it,much like I said about more creative ways
to use it, I think youcome up with more creative and more nuanced
(37:47):
ways to manage how to ethically useit. You know, I don't think
any policy can stay stagnant. Ithink even ours at GNS, which is
a good one, I think willprobably need to change next year as this
technology becomes more ubiquitous and it changesitself, and we're going to have to
(38:07):
find different ways to think about whatexperimentation looks like and get more comfortable with
how things that we maybe have feltcomfortable doing as humans can either be come
either obsolete or heavily augmented. Ourhumanity can be augmented using some of the
(38:28):
creativity that this might unlock for people. I think you're very right. The
way I would phrase it is thatregulation in this space is likely to lag.
That's why it's incumbent upon us ascounselors to our clients and experts in
our field to create both the environmentfor experimentation, pushing opening up, transforming
(38:52):
how we work, but also understandingwhat we think are the proper guide rails
and what we feel is an ethicallens on the application of generative AI.
I think that's going to be veryvery important. What what's your advice for
marcom's and PR professionals to stay aheadand just we we cover the whole integrated
(39:13):
marketing communications landscape. So what areyou most hoping that even our own colleagues
do in the future. I mean, honestly, I think experimentation is key
I think getting and getting access toand using the most advanced versions, the
advanced models, you know, Ithink a lot of people still use GPT
(39:34):
three and a half at three pointfive, and that is kind of their
baseline baseline of knowledge for what AIkind of is. And when you actually
look at GPT four even even claudeto an extent and some of the other
platforms that exist that are coming intocoming online now, it's way more advanced,
(39:57):
you know, it's way smarter,it's it's way easy to kind of
get at some useful responses. Youknow. I've even started using GPT for
as like the facto replacement for Googleright now. You know, if you
write your prompts the right way,you can get a detailed answer on anything,
(40:17):
way more detailed than what you wouldget from Google, because Google's just
a collection, like a list ofwebsites, as opposed to an articulation and
explanation of why something is with citations, which is what you would get from
chat EPT. So I would justencourage people in the marcoms industry to experiment
with it, not just in promptwriting, not just in research, but
(40:40):
in the ways that you can morereadily show off tone and voice you can
ask AI to help you identify withthe thesis of a pressure release of a
blog post, of a white paperis to make sure that your ideas are
actually coalescing into something useful. AndI think that just some of the things
(41:06):
that I was talking about earlier withcrisis prediction, I think I just thought
of this, Like one way thatyou could I can conceivably think of using
AI right now is to take anarticle about a crisis and maybe start playing
with your prompts to see if therewas a way this crisis could have been
predicted, Like what ways could acrisis like this be prevented? And then
(41:30):
maybe start building content off of thoseideas. I mean, but that only
comes with experimentation, right, LikeI think you have to just start playing
with it. Yeah, I thinkyou're right. Yeah, And I would
my advice to colleagues in our industryand really beyond experimentation, but then also
really lean into what we are talentedat in this industry, which is critical
(41:55):
and discerning, thinking what is thesource? Can we go back and verify
something in a world where AI isstill suffering from hallucinations and it will get
better over time, How do weask ourselves, how do I know this
is right? You know? Whatdo I think about this? And also
really lean into the collaboration you talkedabout augmented humanity. I love hearing people
(42:21):
talk about what that could be inthe future, and I think it goes
in a lot of different directions,including in the physical world. But how
do you take your skill as awriter who can iterate on different drafts?
Who don't you don't make as humanas a human being? The first thing
you write isn't the final draft.Usually you're going to iterate and you're going
to learn something and what you intendto write may not be what the final
(42:45):
product ends up being. So howdo you use AI in the machine for
lack of a better word, tohelp you iterate and use and lean into
and open up more space for whatmakes us truly human? So to finish
off today, because this conversation,as we said, could go on forever
at this point on these topics.There's a lot of prognosticating out there,
(43:07):
Kyle. There's a lot of peoplewho have a lot of things to say,
and I guess we're two of themas well. So I think we
should call what is the pronostication that'sBS and what is not BS. I
think that's a good way to end. So I'll start with one thing that
I think is a little bit ofBS, which is what I'm calling the
(43:29):
utopic dystopic binary, meaning it's eitherall awesome or it's all the matrix and
it's all I robot and they're goingto destroy humanity. Right. So my
feeling about people who have prognosticated aboutour industry over the years, as in
the press release, is dead.All agencies are going down. There's never
(43:51):
going to be any stockbrokers. Again, I've heard too many of these over
the years. What I usually findis that the binary is the zero sum
thinking is BS. The truth isusually in the middle, and usually what
will happen is we will bring thebest and worst of ourselves to it.
That's right. I mean, you'respot on. I don't think you can
(44:12):
go to extreme in either direction becausethat leaves you way open to missing a
lot of really interesting, nuanced things. So I agree with you total BS.
What's a BS for me is andI think you've heard a lot of
people say this, the fear ofhuman obsolescence by AI. Now, do
(44:32):
I think that there is some veryobvious negative outcomes that are possible with generator
of AI gone unchecked. Of course, I'd be foolish not to. However,
my thinking is, and this hasbeen repeated ad nauseum by a lot,
a lot of people who are alot smarter than I am, the
most likely scenario is that people whodon't use AI are going to be replaced.
(44:57):
Just like with any new technology,the people who learn it, who
adapt to it, who integrate itinto their day to day experience, often
accelerate, either professionally, socially,whatever have you, at a much faster
rate than those who don't. Notto say that that it's impossible, but
I certainly don't believe that human obsolescenceis on the horizon. What I do
(45:21):
think is that the world that weknow, the world that we're comfortable with
now that's probably gone forever, butit will just give rise to a new
comfort, a new normal, whichwe should all be familiar with after COVID.
Honestly, I think that's really Yeah, it's true. We're having to
go through a lot of change andembracing it and being open to it.
(45:43):
So final advice, learn, self, educate, experiment, and we're going
to keep going on that I knowhere and hopefully I just love learning.
So for me, it's an excitingtime to be leading an organization but also
still doing the tasks that we loveto do. So Kyle, thank you,
and we really appreciate those who tunedin. This is Building Brand Gravity
(46:05):
and we will see you back forour next set of episodes in twenty twenty
four d I'm agree with you here, guys. We are GNS Business Communications.
We are a team of media strategists, storytellers, and engagement experts who
meet you at the intersection of businessand communications. To learn more, visit
gscommunications dot com. You are listeningto Building Brand Gravity attracting people into your
(46:31):
orbit, a GNS Business Communications podcast. Keep connected with us by subscribing to
the show in your favorite podcast player. If you like what you've heard,
please rate the show that helps usto keep delivering the latest in industry influence.
Thanks for listening. Until next time.
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