CANNES — Just 18 months since its inception, generative AI has rapidly evolved from a topic of excitement and possibility to a tool being actively experimented with and implemented by the advertising community.
“Last year at this time, generative AI was only six months old. And so people were talking about the possibilities, the potential, the excitement,” says Jennifer Kattula, GM & CMO at Microsoft Advertising, in this video interview with Beet.TV. “And this year what we’re hearing is people are actually putting it into use.”
Advertisers are now exploring various use cases to understand how generative AI can benefit marketers, the advertising community, and consumers. Kattula expresses enthusiasm about this transition and the progress.
Generative AI Transforms Productivity, Insights, and Creativity
At Microsoft Advertising, Kattula’s team is leveraging generative AI in three key areas: productivity, insights, and creativity.
“On the productivity side, we’re saving so much time through asynchronous communication, free information flow,” Kattula tells Beet.TV editorial director Lisa Granatstein. “For example, I can not attend a meeting and catch up on the notes in five minutes with generative AI, and then I can respond to and communicate with a team on that.”
Microsoft Advertising has developed an internal tool called Insights Navigator, which allows salespeople to generate customized insights from a copilot chat prompt.
“In days before, you would have to contact your analyst, have them pull a SQL query, and then send you the report. And sometimes that could take days or weeks to do,” Kattula says. With Insights Navigator, this process is now nearly instantaneous.
AI-Generated Content Experiments Flourish, Guided by Human Creativity
On the creative front, Kattula’s team is generating more content and experimenting with training their Copilot on generative AI to align with their brand. However, she emphasizes that the genesis of creativity still originates with human beings.
“Copilot and generative AI, these are just natural extensions of our own humanity,” Kattula believes. “I can actually put a prompt right into generative AI or Copilot to get my idea started so I can communicate in their terms and what a time saver that is.”
Looking ahead to next year, Kattula anticipates discussions will focus on how generative AI is saving time, creating efficiencies, and driving growth for companies.
“We’re going to have examples, case studies, measurement around generative AI and impact on our business,” she predicts.
You’re watching “Global Leadership Summit: All Things AI,” a Beet.TV Leadership Series at Cannes Lions 2024 presented by Celtra, Microsoft Advertising and Silverpush. For more videos from this series, please visit this page. To view all of Beet.TV’s Cannes Lions 2024 content, please visit this page.
