Marylou Costatechnology reporter
getty imagesImagine, one night, you’re scrolling through social media on your phone, and the ads start to look remarkably familiar. They’re decorated in your favorite colors, have your favorite music on them and the words sound like phrases you use regularly.
Welcome to the future of advertising, which already exists thanks to AI.
For example, advertising company Cheil UK is working with startup Spotlight on using big-language AI models to understand people’s online activity, and tailoring that content based on how the AI interprets a person’s personality.
The technology can then reflect how someone talks in terms of tone, phrasing and pace to change the ad text accordingly, and insert music and colors to match, such as whether the AI perceives someone as an introvert or extrovert, or has specific preferences for loud or quiet music, or light or dark colors.
The idea is to show millions of people countless different ads, all unique to them.
Brands across retail, consumer electronics, packaged goods, automotive, insurance and banking sectors are already using the technology to create AI-augmented, personality-driven ads to target online buyers.
The AI is able to read what people post on public platforms – Facebook, Instagram, Reddit and other public forums – as well as one’s search history and, most importantly, what people enter into ChatGPTT.
Then, what it concludes about a person’s personality is what AI puts on top of what advertisers already know about people. For example, what part of the country do you live in, what age group are you in, whether you have children or not, what your hobbies might be, where you go on holidays and what clothes you like to wear – information brands can already see through platforms like Facebook or Google.
That’s why those jeans you’ve been searching for online magically appear as a sponsored ad in your inbox, or that vacation you’ve been searching for seems to follow you around the Internet.
EagleThe difference is that now AI can change the content of those ads based on what it thinks about your personality, based on what it’s reading about you. It targets individual people rather than demographic segments or personas traditionally used by advertisers.
“The change is that we are moving away from aggregated data and readily available information based on gender and age, now going to a deeper emotional, psychological level,” says Chris Camacho, CEO of Chel UK.
“You’ve now got AI systems that can go in and trace your entire digital footprint – your entire online personality, from your social media interests to what you engage in.
“That level is much deeper than before, and that’s when you start to build a picture understanding that person, whether they’re happy, whether they’re sad, or what personal situation they’re going through.”
An added bonus for advertisers is that they may not even need a special AI system to personalize their output.
Researchers in the US studied the reactions of consumers who were presented with an iPhone advertisement based on how high the person scored on a list of four different personality characteristics based on text written by a ChatGPT.
The study found that personalized text was more persuasive than ads with no personalized text – and people didn’t mind that it was written by AI.
“Right now, AI is really excelling on that targeting piece. Where it’s still in the early stages is on the personalization piece, where a brand is actually creating creative copy that matches some element of your psychographic profile,” explains Jacob Tinney, an assistant professor of marketing at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management who led the AI research.
“There is still some development to be done, but all roads point to the fact that this is the way to go [digital advertising is done]“He says.
Personalized AI ads can also provide a solution to the problem of digital advertising ‘wastage’ – the fact that 15% of what brands spend on digital advertising goes unnoticed or unnoticed, so it generates no value for their business.
alex calderNot everyone agrees that personalization is the right way forward.
“Congratulations – your AI has spent a lot of money creating an ad that only one person will ever see, and they’ve already forgotten it,” says Alex Calder, chief consultant at Brighton-based AI innovation consultancy Jagged Edge, which is part of digital marketing company Anything Is Possible.
“The real opportunity lies in using AI to deepen the relevance of powerful, mass-reaching ideas, not to segment them into one-off micro-ads that no one remembers. The creepy slut who brags about knowing your intimate details is still a slut.”
Ivan Mato at brand consultancy Elmwood agrees. He is also questioning whether people will accept it, whether regulators will allow it and whether brands should even operate this way.
“There’s also the question of surveillance. It all boils down to a data economy that is making many consumers uncomfortable,” says London-based Mr Mato.
“AI opens up new creative possibilities, but the real strategic question is not whether brands can personalize everything – but rather whether they should do so, and what they risk losing if they do.”
Elm woodCheil UK’s Mr Camacho believes AI-personalised advertising could also take a turn for the worse.
“There will be camps that use AI well and ethically, and then there will be those that use it to convince, influence, and guide people on the right path,” he says.
“And that’s the thing that I personally find quite scary. When you think about elections and political campaigning, and how the use of AI can influence voting decisions and who gets elected next.
But Mr. Camacho is determined to stay on the right side of morality.
“We don’t need to use AI to make ads creepy or influence individuals to do unethical things. We’re trying to stay on the good side of it. We’re trying to enhance the connection between brands and individuals, and that’s all we’ve tried to do.”
