Katrine Pearson: AI is a great addition but it’s not a replacement

View from the board by Katrine Pearson

The marketing and communications sectors have been discussing AI for a few years now.

As disciplines that rely on data to understand consumer behaviour, use social media as a core part of our offering and have a responsibility to keep clients abreast of trends, we have been closely monitoring developments and embracing how AI can support campaign delivery.

As advisors on reputation, we’re also acutely aware of the wide-ranging ethical implications, and it’s unsurprising that calls for regulation are stepping up.

What measures are in place to ensure the information generative AI tools produce is accurate? Deepfake images and videos have become almost indiscernible from the real thing. AI driven algorithms can show bias in analysing data. Just a flavour of the potential issues we need to consider.

But it doesn’t mean AI is something we should be afraid of. There are so many useful tools and platforms that can save us time, support research and quickly analyse data.

The challenge with many, particularly generative AI, is that what comes out is always reliant on what goes in, in terms of how it has been built, how it gathers the data it uses to generate responses and the quality of the questions that are asked.

For example, until recently ChatGPT’s dataset was only based on content up until 2021 so it lacked data on recent developments and events. Similarly, if you ask broad questions, you get broad answers back.

To get the best results, the user still needs to either have a very clear idea of what they need to get from the tool or spend time refining outputs and adding nuances and context.

And that’s why it’s important to remember AI tools are exactly that, tools, and every tool needs a workman. As sophisticated as AI is becoming, when it comes to marketing and communications, we’re targeting people and we still need that human touch.

• Katrine Pearson is a director at 3x1 Group

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