NEW YORK: While marketers are fascinated by the potential of generative AI to populate their content channels, they are proceeding with caution.
TelevisaUnivision’s marketing team, for example, uses generative AI carefully to avoid unintentional bias and ensure content is culturally relevant to its audience, according to Leslie Koch, the Spanish-language broadcaster’s senior vice president of creators and social strategy.
The team also wants to get more familiar with content rights issues before creating more AI-generated work, Koch said during a panel discussion at AI Deciphered: Discovering the Potential for Marketers and Communicators. (AI Deciphered took place last Thursday in New York, produced by PRWeek and its sister titles Haymarket Media MM+M and Campaign.)
“It’s kind of the Wild West today when it comes to generative AI tools and using them for content,” Koch said. “It really reminds me of the early days of social media, where we were all trying to figure out what they were doing.”
As generative AI becomes more accessible, brands and content creators run the risk of losing their distinctiveness. According to Natalie Silverstein, director of innovation at Collectively, this makes human creativity and taste even more important.
One designer Silverstein works with described Claude, an AI assistant, as “an extension of her brain, and he’s her creative partner who helps her come up with ideas,” she said.
“If we start to see similarities in some of the examples coming from the (generative AI) creators, it’s because they’re intentionally drawing on each other’s style, not because it’s the (AI) product itself,” Silverstein said.
Creators using AI also face the challenge of maintaining authenticity.
Salma Aboukar, founder of Qreates, a platform that allows users to generate studio-quality AI product photos, expects there will soon be AI models, trained on a specific brand’s style and voice, that can “produce something that looks authentic, even though it’s generated by AI.”
Silverstein said it’s crucial for marketers to continue to have “humans in the mix and a strong brand identity, whether that identity is simply a set of values or a set of visual markers.”
“It’s really important that brands know who they are when they’re briefing creators or when they’re using generative AI,” she said.
Aboukar and Koch added that despite the many unknowns, creators and brands should experiment with AI and how it can improve their creative process.
“There is no right or wrong way to use these tools,” Aboukar said.
Silverstein had another piece of advice for creatives using AI: “Become friends with your legal counsel,” she said.
This story first appeared on US campaign.
