Pop culture’s representation of AI would have us think it’s the stuff of a dystopian future. But in reality it’s closer than we think, and is set to have a metamorphic impact on business over the next few years. 25% of jobs will be replaced by software or robots by 2025, and if you thought it was just your uncle’s job down on the factory floor at risk, you’re terribly mistaken. Junior marketers face a ‘33% chance’ of robots taking their job in the next 20 years. From research to community management, editorial and even creative, AI is applying for your job.
Ok Google, Hi Siri, Hey Cortana. Artificial Intelligence has entered the mainstream through our smartphones and the same technology is now entering the customer service industry. Take ‘cognitive agent’ IPsoft Amelia, who speaks 20 languages, works 24/7 and can replace 80% of all customer service tasks. Could these virtual assistants become the gatekeeper between brands and their customers?
In fact, AI has already made its way into the world of social community management. Meshfire Ember, the social media AI, can suggest people to follow and engage with to maximise your reach and engagement, and can find relevant content to share to your brand’s audience.
It’s also creeping into our editorial and strategy departments. The startup Echobox uses algorithms and machine learning to look at view data and in turn shapes editorial and creative strategy.
While ambitions are high, we know that we’ve got a long way to go. This was made painfully clear in experiments such as Tay.AI, the chatbot set up by Microsoft to simulate the online ramblings of a teenage girl. Tay was designed so that the more people chatted with her, the smarter she got – but the experiment rapidly went wrong when Tay’s conversations turned her into an anti-semitic internet troll.
We fantasise about a future like those we see in Her and Humans, but are we being realistic? will it be us vs them in the labour market, or could we collaborate with AI to improve how we work? At We Are Social’s AI 101 we will have an array of speakers, from disruptive start-ups to forward thinking futurists who can answer these questions and many more:
Patrick Jeffrey from Contagious – an intelligence platform, magazine, live events and global consultancy.
Louis Daillencourt from Echobox – Where Artificial Intelligence meets online publishing.
George Zarkadakis – Artificial Intelligence buff and author of In Our Own Image.
Alex Housley from Seldon.io – Enterprise machine-learning platform for prediction and recommendation.
