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Artificial intelligence could potentially become agencies’ differentiator in the next few years, so how good is the technology right now?
Over the past year, agencies of all stripes have in some way tested or integrated generative AI – from developing briefs and creative assets to using it to power back-end processes or making chatbots. As AI experimentation enters its next phase, media and influencer agencies alike are taking on bigger client projects and building more complex tools on a larger scale. Still, a lot of uncertainty remains.
“[AI] is a powerful new technology that’s very much in its toddler phase, and we don’t know yet what it will grow up to be,” said Kyle Monson, founding partner at integrated marketing shop Codeword, which started an internship program with two AI interns last year to learn more about the technology.
From alien robots to burgers
Earlier this year at the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, S4 Capital’s Media.Monks unveiled its alien AI “advisor,” Wormhole, as part of showcasing its new AI offering called Monks.Flow.
It’s a part of bringing some of the Monks.Flow AI capabilities into the real world, showing how the tools can automate processes and connect various marketing activities. Now its conversational AI applications will hopefully get better with research to integrate all the voice, text and visual components in the future, said Peter Altamirano, vp and global head of technology at Media.Monks.
“We are already in conversation with some clients potentially to bring it to the world at scale, but the larger experiences or global scale have a couple of more challenges we need to go through,” Altamirano said.
Over time, Media.Monks’ latest AI avatar, Omni, will help the agency test client applications on a larger scale, from example use cases like building personalized brand experiences to deploying the assistant in hotels or retail stores – it just depends on the client and purpose. As of today, the digital avatar can interact conversationally and relay information, but more advanced functions will ideally come in the future – like the ability for Omni to recognize different speakers’ voices or have visual capabilities to know who is who in the room – which would allow it to chime in during meetings or chat in other group settings.
Digital AI avatar Omni. Courtesy of Media.Monks.
This month, the agency tested another area of its AI offering by launching its largest generative AI project to date with Burger King. With the BK Million Dollar Whopper Contest, burger fans come up with a Whopper by plugging in ingredients for a chance to get their creation sold in the chain and win $1 million.
The project combines large language models, a type of AI program that generates texts and tasks,