Is CHATGPT and the future both awesome and terrifying?’ | David Balko, Chief Client Officer, Tribal Worldwide London

The future’s so bright I’ve gotta wear shades.

It’s been often commented lately that ChatGPT and Bard and AI in general will render us all useless and redundant. Perhaps, in some dystopian future that might be true, but I’m sensing that we’re some way off and being optimistic, to paraphrase Timbuck 3, “the future’s so bright, I’ve gotta wear shades”. Being serious for a moment, the truth is AI won’t take our jobs, but someone who really know’s how to use AI might.

Forbes magazine recently described the 14 industries that will benefit from AI the most and there were no surprises really — logistics, healthcare, cybersecurity all being sectors that will see huge benefits from this technology. The ability for AI to spot disease is well known and is saving lives already. Logistics will also be massive. The shipping industry is using all manner of tech to reduce carbon emissions and this will only serve to accelerate such endeavors.

As an optimist — although one with a degree of healthy skepticism — AI will obviously have an effect on the marketing sector. Used smartly it will dramatically improve basic everyday tasks in the office but will also have a huge impact on personalisation, media buying and social media.

Only last week I used it to quickly give me a head start on a presentation for a new business client. The starter for ten wasn’t bad and gave me a good base upon which to build. The end result was different and had my personality on it. But the point is I got there faster. That can only be a good thing.

For digital agencies and clients with any sort of data, this will be where we see the real benefits; personalised experiences and outcomes for customers across all sectors will become expected, nay demanded by consumers. Especially with larger purchases like cars and holidays. AI can make that cost effective. Take a huge body of shot content and allow AI to personalize the story based on a customers known or perceived needs; AI will allow us to quickly and most importantly, cost effectively create and manage this type of communication.

Like all things, digital and web related, as long as people are told they are getting a better experience as a result of AI and that there’s not some evil baddie in the background (China) harvesting and using all that data to build nasty robots then things will be positive.

To be serious for a moment, the truth is AI is really, really powerful and there are some amazing tools out there that are already making a huge difference across loads of sectors. The winners will be those who can embrace, develop and utilise these tools and services brilliantly. It’s only after this that the evil time traveling robots will come…

Originally published at https://www.siliconroundabout.org.uk.