“Our CTO says, ‘We’re not going to make your ancestors dance,’” she continued. “That, inherently, is a principle of what we’re willing to do and not do, because AI can.”
Those guardrails are what will dictate the boundaries of the future, noted Kimberly Storin, CMO of Zoom.
“It’s going to be such an important part of where humanity goes,” Storin said.
Wesley ter Haar, co-founder and chief AI officer at Monks, added that marketers are finally able to make good on the promise of personalization on a massive scale in real time, thanks to these models.
“The models are clearly good enough to parse through massive amounts of data in close to real time, which means that there’s an unlock there,” he said.
But as the tech progresses, “everything is on the table,” ter Haar warned. “When it comes to things like taste as a human skill set—I think we all want that to be a human skill set. I think because of that, we will make it a predominantly human skill set for quite a few years to come.”
Know a brand’s value
Beyond guardrails, companies also need to know what their foundational values are, said Ray Kunik, head of digital at 3M.
“Transformation begins within, but trust is the currency of philosophy,” he said. “If you’re not centered on who you are and what you’re standing for, and think about that internally and external, then what are you building on?”
Reflecting on how much has changed over the last six months, participants also argued that leaders must stay flexible.
“As much as we need to have a vision for the future, every day, it changes,” said Josh Line, CMO at Yahoo.
As these changes revolutionize how people live their lives, it’s also important to stay rooted in the present, or risk leaving swaths of your customer base behind.
“Once upon a time, every single ad ended with, ‘Go to www dot…,’” said Stransky. “That’s gonna be AI very soon, but today we’re still in the education phase.”
