Will AI mean better ads or “creepy garbage”?

Imagine one night you’re browsing social media on your phone and the ads start to look noticeably familiar. They’re decorated in your favorite colors, feature your favorite music, and the text sounds like phrases you usually use.

Welcome to the future of advertising, which is already here thanks to AI.

Advertising company Cheil UK, for example, has been working with startup Spotlight on using big-language AI models to understand people’s online activity and tailor that content based on what the AI ​​interprets as an individual’s personality.

The technology can then reflect how someone speaks in terms of tone, phrasing and pace to change ad copy accordingly and insert music and colors to match, for example, if the AI ​​considers someone to be an introvert or extrovert, or if they have specific preferences for loud or quiet music, or light or dark colors.

The goal is to show countless different ads to millions of people, all exclusive to them.

Brands in retail, consumer electronics, packaged goods, automotive, insurance and banking are already using the technology to create personality-based, AI-enhanced ads to target online shoppers.

The AI ​​is capable of reading what people post on public platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Reddit and other public forums), as well as someone’s search history and, most importantly, what people enter into ChatGPT.

Then, with what it deduces about an individual’s personality, the AI ​​overlays it on top of what advertisers already know about people. For example, where in the country you live, what age group you are in, whether you have children or not, what your hobbies are, where you go on vacation and what clothes you like to wear: information that brands can already see through platforms such as Facebook or Google.

That’s why the jeans you’ve been searching for online magically appear in your inbox as a sponsored ad, or the vacation you’ve been searching for seems to follow you around the internet.

The difference is that now the AI ​​can change the content of those ads, based on what it thinks is your personality, thanks to what it has been reading about you. It targets individuals, rather than the demographics or personas that advertisers would traditionally use.

“The change is that we are moving away from data collected based on gender and age, and readily available information, to now going more at a deeper emotional and psychological level,” says Chris Camacho, chief executive of Cheil UK.

“Now you have artificial intelligence systems that can go in and scan your entire digital footprint: your entire online personality, from your interests on social media to what you’ve been participating in.

“That level is much deeper than before, and that’s when you start to build a picture by understanding that individual, whether they’re happy, sad, or what personal situation they’re going through.”

An added advantage for advertisers is that they may not even need a custom-made AI system to personalize their production.

Researchers in the United States studied the reactions of consumers who were advertised for an iPhone, with personalized text written by ChatGPT based on that person’s score on a list of four different personality attributes.

The study found that personalized text was more persuasive than ads without personalized text, and people didn’t care that it was written by AI.

“Right now, AI is really excelling in that segmentation part. Where it’s still in the nascent stages is in that personalization part, where a brand is actually creating creative copy that matches some element of their psychological profile,” explains Jacob Teeny, assistant professor of marketing at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, who led the AI ​​research.

“There is still some development left, but all signs point to this being the path [digital advertising is done]”he adds.

AI personalized ads could also provide a solution to the problem of digital advertising “waste” – the fact that 15% of what brands spend on digital advertising goes unnoticed or unseen, therefore generating no value for their business.

Not everyone is convinced that personalization is the right way to go.

“Congratulations, your AI has just spent a fortune creating an ad that only one person will see and they’ve already forgotten about it,” says Brighton-based Alex Calder, chief consultant at AI innovation consultancy Jagged Edge, which is part of digital marketing firm Anything is Possible.

“The real opportunity lies in using AI to deepen the relevance of powerful, mass-reaching ideas, rather than fragmenting them into one-by-one micro ads that no one remembers. Creepy garbage that boasts about knowing your intimate details is still garbage.”

Ivan Mato of brand consultancy Elmwood agrees. He also wonders if people will accept it, if regulators will allow it, and if brands should want to operate this way.

“There is also the question of surveillance. It all depends on a data economy that many consumers are increasingly uncomfortable with,” says Mato, who lives in London.

“AI opens up new creative possibilities, but the real strategic question is not whether brands can personalize everything, but whether they should and what risk they stand to lose if they do.”

AI-targeted ads could also take a dark turn, acknowledges Cheil UK’s Camacho.

“There will be one side that uses AI well and ethically, and then there will be those that use it to persuade, influence and guide people along the way,” he says.

“And that’s what I personally find quite scary. When you think about elections and political scrutiny, and how the use of AI can influence voting decisions and who will be elected next.

But Camacho is committed to staying on the right side of ethics.

“We don’t have to use AI to make ads creepy or influence people to do things that are unethical. We’re trying to stay on the nice side. We’re trying to improve the connection between brands and people, and that’s all we’ve tried to do.”