AI powered advertising is on a roll

GroupM recently estimated that 90% of digital ad campaigns will be influenced by AI by 2027, per an analyst note from New Street Research’s Dan Salmon.

Advertising agency Havas has historically used AI and machine learning technologies for lower funnel performance optimization tasks. Now, it’s trying to embed the technology throughout more phases of the campaign process.

“At HMG, we want to move to a place in the next 2-3 years where we are applying AI in our agency to optimise all media buys, to create custom algorithms within a bidder, to identify the right training modules for a planner, make manual tasks like filling out our timesheets far more automated, and much more,” said Mike Bregman, chief data officer at Havas Media Group. 

For those worried about whether AI will take over sector jobs, it seems as if it will only take over the mundane elements. Horizon Media is a case in point. The media agency launched an AI-based predictive analytics tool last month it said was designed to boost e-commerce sales by 20% for clients. 

In other news, last week, DDB announced a new hybrid creative platform called RAND focused on developing and implementing new AI technologies for creative processes. RAND will also be a formal centre based in Sweden, and DDB is hiring creative technologists and people with machine learning experience to help build new creative augmentation tools.

DDB EMEA Chief Strategy Officer George Strakhov said AI is worth investing in because it is the “fundamentally next step in the creative process.” As media buying becomes more optimised and personalised, Strakhov said it’ll become even more important for generative AI to help creative producers develop enough content to meet that demand. However, he said it’s important to also think about a key question: What are marketers optimising for?

“Naturally, you optimise for what you can measure, and right now it’s mostly attribution,” Strakhov said. “But if you only optimise for the immediate action, the immediate click-through, you run a danger of TikTokifying everything, which is everything is just going to be whatever makes you watch. And I don’t think that’s where we want to go.”

AI’s role amidst online platforms also isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. The CEOs for Google, Meta, Snapchat and Microsoft were so keen to talk about AI that it was mentioned 105 times in total across their most recent call sessions. Some of these mentions were more focused on tools that are closer to machine learning than true AI, but it’s clear what the end goal is.

Meta’s Advantage+ Suite, which is a set of machine-learning-based technologies that help marketers automate all steps of a campaign, is one of its fastest growing products. The same goes for Google’s Performance Max tool that uses machine learning to automate targeting, creative decisions and placement of marketers’ ad dollars across all of Google’s ecosystem. The company’s chief business officer Philipp Schindler talked up its importance on its earnings call last week.