Navigating AI: This Week's Business Highlights #12

June 16, 2024

Welcome to the AI Trailblazers Newsletter. This past week we hosted our inaugural AI Trailblazers Summit at Neuehouse in NYC. Below are a few takeaways before we get into other news.

Unconventional use cases in AI's future? Jean-Paul Jansen shared how Mars Petcare used AI to insert digital doubles of real dogs ready for adoption into hyper-local targeted ads. Samantha Tucker explained how AI was used to identify a vegan alternative to carmine, a pigment traditionally derived from crushing 1,000 beetles per tube for the Unilever Hourglass Red 0 lipstick. Finally, Sophie Kelly highlighted how the Diageo FlavorPrint AI technology helps consumers discover new drinks and provides food pairing recommendations.

Marketing panel at the AI Trailblazers Summit

Open LLMs, the only way forward? Bob Lord discussed how open LLMs are good business. Reflecting on IBM's AI Principles, which were launched with the IBM CEO at Davos in 2017, he emphasized the importance of accountability, transparency, fairness, and security. Bob also talked about AI agents freeing up humanity to accomplish exciting, yet-to-be-imagined, higher-order jobs

Are you managing the cost of GenAI? According to Vivek Vaidya, considering the unit cost of AI is crucial for scaling meaningful work. With tech changes, product roadmaps that extend beyond six months are useless. While AI is generating savings for many companies, they should be reinvested to further train and optimize models right now.

Investor Panel at the AI Trailblazers Summit

Can AI do great Creative for us? Cheryl Guerin from Mastercard argued that AI is not yet capable of leading creative breakthroughs at scale. In contrast, Jonathan Halvorson, of Mondelēz International believes AI can fill the "creative excellence gap" by enabling levels of creativity previously unattainable. This view was echoed by Marisa Thalberg from United Parks & Resorts as well.

Do we need government to regulate? When Suzanne Vranica posed the question, there was a divide on whether government or industry consortiums should regulate AI. Most guests favored government intervention while panelists didn't. AI-friendly cities were also discussed, with Nihal Mehta touting SF as the place for AI, while George Mathew was more cautious.

Product innovation panel at the AI Trailblazers Summit

Do you know what "good" looks like? Establishing a consensus on what constitutes "good" in AI - whether in creative, personalization, policies, or investment strategies—is crucial. Sophie Kelly stressed needing to view AI through a cross-functional lens as did JJ Juergensen and Peter Lesser to drive business value.

Many thanks to all that attended and we hope to see you at our next summit.

Legal panel at the AI Trailblazers Summit

Now on to our news summary . If you come across any compelling AI stories related to these companies that are worth sharing with the community, please feel free to send them our way.

Apple Jumps into the AI Race

At WWDC 2024, Apple unveiled it’s foray into AI. As The Verge reports, this announcement marks a significant shift for Apple, as it embraces advanced AI capabilities, including a more conversational Siri, custom AI-generated emojis, and integration with OpenAI's GPT-4o. These features aim to streamline user interactions, enhance privacy, and offer innovative content creation tools, available later this year with updates to iOS, iPadOS, and macOS.

  • Introduction of Apple Intelligence: Apple introduced "Apple Intelligence," a suite of AI features for the iPhone, Mac, and other devices. Key features include a more conversational Siri, custom AI-generated "Genmoji," and GPT-4o integration for enhanced assistance. These features will be available on the iPhone 15 Pro, 15 Pro Max, and newer iPads or Macs, starting with iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia.

  • Enhanced Siri Capabilities: Siri will gain new abilities to carry out actions across different apps, manage notifications, write text, and summarize content. Users can change the tone of written content and ask Siri to perform cross-app tasks like playing a podcast. Siri's "onscreen awareness" allows it to understand and act on user content in both Apple and third-party apps, with the option to type commands.

  • Privacy and Data Security: Apple emphasizes privacy, ensuring many AI features work on-device and more complex requests are processed via "Private Cloud Compute." Apple's servers, powered by Apple Silicon, will handle complex AI tasks without storing and accessing user data. Independent experts will be able to inspect the code running on Apple's servers to verify privacy protections.

  • AI-Generated Content and OpenAI Integration: Apple introduced "Genmoji" for creating custom emoji-like reactions and "Image Playground" for AI-generated images. The Photos app will receive enhancements for better search functionality and new editing tools similar to Google's Magic Eraser. GPT-4o-powered ChatGPT will be integrated into Siri for complex queries, with user consent required for data sharing and OpenAI ensuring no user data storage.

AI Trailblazer Takeaways: Apple’s foray into AI has received mix reactions. Truth is, they don’t seem to want to get into the LLM biz as it’s becoming a crowded space with players placing some huge financial bets. Apple prefers to focus on their customer and how AI will impact their usage of Apple products, whether that’s smart or foolhardy is any person’s opinion at this early stage of the game.

CMOs Cautiously Scale AI Usage

Ad Age reports on a Boston Consulting Group survey of over 200 chief marketing officers reveals mixed sentiments on generative AI. While many report initial successes in automating tasks like content creation and trend identification, scaling these applications poses significant challenges. Despite optimism and planned investments in AI, concerns persist regarding its impact on creativity and brand identity, prompting a call for strategic shifts towards more innovative AI applications.

  • CMO Perspectives on Generative AI: A Boston Consulting Group survey reveals a shift in CMO sentiment towards AI, with concerns dropping from 46% to 35% over the past year. Despite initial successes in using AI for content creation and social media trend identification, scaling these applications across broader business functions remains challenging. Approximately 80% of CMOs report improvements in automation and productivity, with over half anticipating significant growth in AI-related business applications.

  • Challenges in AI Integration: CMOs express reservations about AI's impact on creativity and brand voice, with over 70% concerned about its effects. Many brands are stuck scaling basic AI applications due to operational model limitations, hindering efforts to achieve substantial returns. The survey underscores a need for predictive AI alongside generative AI to better anticipate consumer needs and enhance decision-making processes.

  • Strategic Recommendations: Survey authors advocate for a shift from AI automation to innovation, urging CMOs to prioritize applications like customer insight generation and predictive analysis. Despite optimism and increased investment intentions, only about 20% of CMOs are scaling AI-powered personalization efforts, signaling untapped potential.

    Brands are advised to focus on quality over quantity in AI-generated content to effectively differentiate themselves in crowded markets.

AI Trailblazer Takeaways: It seems like CMOs are dipping their toes in the AI waters but don’t want to be the first to dive in. It will be interesting to see how these patterns evolve over time as you definitely don’t want to arrive late to this party, it could prove too costly.

What is AI Trailblazers?

AI Trailblazers is a vibrant platform dedicated to uniting marketers, technologists, entrepreneurs, and venture capitalists at the forefront of artificial intelligence (AI). We launched at CES in partnership with The New York Times and hosted our members for an evening of AI programming at SXSW. Most recently, we hosted the first AI Trailblazers Summit in NYC.

Photographs from the AI Trailblazers evening at SXSW

This platform is designed to fuel growth, innovation, and career development among its members, who all want to be at the forefront of incorporating artificial intelligence into their businesses and their lives for strategic advantage. More information here.

- Steve Ballmer