Why does everyone hate February? According to ChatGPT, “February’s dislike by some is due to factors like cold weather, short length, and lack of festivities, but whether someone dislikes February or not is subjective and varies from person to person.” Sounds about right. Hope your February is going ok :-)
Learning AI & Marketing
One of the most effective ways to understand a new technology is by actually using it. In my digital marketing training courses, I often incorporate ‘homework’ for participants to try out and reflect on new tools. It not only helps participants to get more comfortable with the technology, but it also gets everyone thinking ‘how might I actually be able to use this?’ I’m starting to weave generative AI tools into my training programs; for example, when we cover:
email marketing, try a tool for brainstorming subject lines
web content, try a tool for identifying keyword ideas
social media, try a tool for the creation of different branded posts
It’s still early, but I’ll share if any useful marketing use cases emerge.
The area of generative AI emergence that I’m most interested these days is how it will impact search. Google recently announced its ChatGPT-rival Bard, and demonstrated how the technology might work in the context of search. Will online search become just become chat? Will generative AI kickstart the flatlining smart speaker market? How will publishers acquire traffic if links are not provided? What does this mean for the future of Google and its ad-supported business model? It feels like there will be different search services for different search modes (e.g., looking for options vs. looking for answers).
FRESH REPORTS
The New Gatekeepers: No one tells stories through charts better than Ben Evans. His latest presentation points to what’s next in tech, and covers retail media, ecommerce, and of course AI. I found his ‘What is ‘TV’ Anyway?’ section really thought-provoking. A must read.
Digital Culture Review (We Are Social): Smart deconstruction of what's working in social content (and why it’s working). These trends are so unique to TikTok, no wonder companies are looking to hire for the specialty. For what it's worth, I’m loving the ‘soothing and suspenseful’ posts - like those from my man The Bread Guy.
Challengers to Watch 2023 (Eat Big Fish): From the authors of one of my fav biz books – a super smart and fun round-up of the themes and brands driving the challenger ethos. The featured brands are smart and creative, including a product that’s making its way onto my Father’s Day Wishlist.
WHAT’S TRENDING
11 Tech Trends to Watch: These trends were identified by CB Insights by apparently analyzing investment activity, earnings call transcripts, media mentions, and patents. Not sure I’m bullish on the ‘digitizing of scent’, but we’ll see?
Dentsu Creative Trends 2023: Smart deck that’s worth a download. Interesting to see how many trends are a direct response to our collective COVID experiences – like looking for more joy and ‘cultural shock’.
Meta Trending Trends 2023: Matt Klein does an admirable job of clustering and naming trends from 50+ trend decks. Interesting to see how he illustrates the evolution, collision, and combining of trends over time.
COOL BEANS
AI & Visual Art: Just signed up for this newsletter that showcases new / best of AI generative visual art, some of which was displayed at the Grammys. Spacecadet also curates the best of 3D art – very weird and very cool.
AI & Music: Google released an update on MusicLM that generates music from text (scroll down for “accordion death metal”). Beatoven.ai is a similar service that you can actually try yourself.
Wonders of Street View: Love this curation of crazy photos taken by Google Street View (warning: highly addictive). Google has also released some cool updates to its Google Maps service, allowing users to look inside buildings.
