artificial intelligence Archives

The last year has seen the conversation around artificial intelligence start to really sizzle. From the release of ChatGPT to the realization of self-driving cars, we are witnessing the tech-tonic plates of the world shift — opening myriad possibilities. The combination of human brainpower and machine learning is revolutionizing industries, including the consumer packaged goods space. AI is transforming how CPG companies research, develop, and market their products, manage their supply chains, and engage consumers.

CPG companies function in highly dynamic markets with countless variables that impact supply, demand, engagement, and overall performance. As markets become more complicated, legacy systems are often less efficient at handling the complexity.

Today, the CPG industry has entered an era of increased efficiency and optimization using artificial intelligence. AI and machine learning are transforming how companies of all sizes, from global enterprises to bootstrapped startups, operate. Their game-changing potential has launched the CPG industry into a new epoch of intelligent enterprises.

Questions swirl, however, about the most effective and ethical ways industry leaders can balance AI’s transformation. Leveraging a technology that is reliant on data inputs carries some risks, insensitive content creation, copyright infringement, misuse of content, and more, which could have serious repercussions for brand reputation. The goal is to “carpe diem” on business opportunities while avoiding potential missteps.

Real-world AI Use Cases

Let’s explore how AI can impact the CPG value chain, plus how industry leaders are using it to enhance demand forecasting, optimize inventory, and modernize supply chain management.

Here are five pivotal ways AI can help transform the CPG space.

Research and Product Development

Generative AI can help CPG companies research and develop new products by helping to identify and track consumer trends, preferences, and feedback in real-time. Analyzing social media, consumer reviews, and other sources with the help of this technology can provide enhanced insights into consumers’ expectations, helping CPG brands produce products that better meet their customers’ needs. Brands that implement AI will be able to remain highly competitive by optimizing their understanding of the market to drive sales.

Supply Chain Optimization

Demand-sensing is the data-driven “crystal ball” that undergirds CPG supply chain planning. Correctly estimating upcoming demand across a distribution network with AI means product supply can be adjusted accordingly to help companies better manage inventory and logistics. By optimizing warehouse layouts with this tech, industry leaders can minimize the amount of inventory that needs to be stored, thus reducing costs and improving efficiencies. AI algorithms can also help identify the most cost- (and fuel-) effective transportation modes and routes, reducing gas consumption and overtime expenses — a win for their bottom line and the environment.

Demand Forecasting

Traditionally, CPG companies used statistical forecasting methods based on past sales. However, with increased market complexity and volatility, these reactive approaches are not always the most predictive. In contrast, AI-driven forecasting can analyze market trends, historical data, and factors like holidays and weather to more accurately forecast demand for consumer products. According to McKinsey, companies that apply AI-driven forecasting methodology to their supply chain management can reduce errors by 20% to 50%, helping manufacturers and retailers optimize production schedules, reduce waste, efficiently manage inventory, and ultimately improve profitability.

Personalization

Personalization allows for deeper engagement with customers and, at its most basic level, means using what you know about a customer to make interactions more relevant to them — from personalized messaging, product recommendations, personalized content, and more. AI personalization processes are data-based, meaning CPG brands can create more nuanced products, customized marketing campaigns, content, messaging, and recommendations for individual consumers. The more personal a brand’s communication feels, the deeper the connection — which is why personalization has become a holy grail for marketers.

Customer Service and Support

It’s always critical for CPG companies to maintain strong relationships with their customers to cultivate and maintain brand loyalty. While most brands currently use chatbots, newer AI-powered versions can more effectively assist customers with simpler and more rote tasks, reducing the workload on customer service teams. By providing in-depth, optimized customer support with these new tech tools, CPG companies can ensure that customers feel supported throughout their journey, gradually building confidence and brand loyalty.

AI in CPG Today

Some well-known CPG companies have begun to use AI for crucial business processes. Manufacturing and pet care giant Mars, for instance, is exploring AI for its pet food division to predict cats and dogs risk of developing chronic kidney disease, utilizing the technology to speed up genomic sequencing to provide individualized nutrition and care.

Nestlé, along with Campbell’s, Mars, Givaudan, and PepsiCo, are reportedly using a generative AI platform, Tastewise, to help test and validate new product ideas. Tastewise is a proprietary AI platform built on a vast dataset of food consumption, providing deep-reaching insights into billions of real-life moments of consumption, best-selling restaurant items, and more, opening the door to a flood of new recipes, product innovation, marketing campaigns, and more for this industry.

As more CPG brands start to implement AI-enabled platforms — such as It’sRapid, which boasts major retail partners like Target and Kroger — the stage is set for an AI revolution.

__________________________________

Bottomline

What is becoming increasingly clear is that AI has landed — and, regardless of industry, the world is fast evolving as it adapts to the inherent power of this new technology. CPG companies see that the time to harness AI’s potential is now. Business leaders who delay any further risk losing their competitive edge, while other, more pioneering brands shape the industry’s future.

If you’re interested in exploring how AI can benefit your brand, contact us. We have experts who can devise an AI game plan tailored to your specific business priorities. The future belongs to those who adapt.

If you had asked tech gurus ten years ago where AI would have the most significant impact, creativity would not have been at the top of the list — if it even garnered a mention at all. But 2023 changed the game with the explosive advent of generative AI platforms like Chat GPT and Midjourney, which have completely disrupted the creative landscape. And with this tsunami of change comes a host of hard-to-answer questions about the future of creative work.

Ad agencies, Hollywood, and more are grappling with existential questions about the origins of creativity and what that means for the humans whose ideas serve as the very foundation of generative AI technology. It’s clear that AI is here to stay — and major marketers are figuring out how to capitalize on it — with agencies increasingly seeing their role as mediators between this new technology and brands.

The ad agency landscape is primarily led by six agency holding groups: WPP, Omnicom, IPG, Havas, Dentsu, and Publicis, each of which owns hundreds of agencies.

Until very recently, the ad industry had been less impacted by technological progress that has impacted other industries like print media, music, travel, retail checkout assistants, and more. Now, there is a growing tension between the allure of cost savings that AI could bring and what its implementation means for creatives. To find the right way forward, many agencies have formed cross-departmental AI task forces to uncover the opportunities and limitations of the technology.

Some agency holding groups have taken a more strategic approach to using generative AI internally and with clients, setting safeguards as internal groups assemble to work on their due diligence with this burgeoning technology.

How Key Agency Holding Companies are Managing AI

Here’s how some agency holding companies are futureproofing themselves as AI becomes increasingly ubiquitous.

WPP just announced on January 2024 that they are investing $317 million in AI this year while assuring employees and shareholders that they won’t forget about the company’s roots in creativity, said CEO Mark Read.

________

Omnicom CEO John Wren said the company’s outlook on AI’s potential is evolving. “We’ll be embracing it as quickly as we possibly can,” Wren said, adding that it would help employees and benefit clients.” In November 2023, the organization announced a groundbreaking collaboration with Getty Images that gives its agencies early access to Generative AI by Getty Images, a generative AI tool that’s trained only on Getty’s licensed photo library, ensuring a commercially safe and legally protected creative sandbox.

Also of note, Omnicom is the first advertising holding company to join Adobe’s Content Authenticity Initiative (CAI), comprised of a group of media and tech companies, NGOs, academics, and others, which seeks to increase trust and transparency in digital content by the general public.

________

Havas has been implementing AI in its creative agencies to make teams more efficient and effective. The company has taken a business-first approach to integrating the new technology into its agency subsidiaries. As digital advertisers say goodbye to cookies, Havas has unveiled an AI-enabled media planning methodology that optimizes buys as the cookie-less future becomes the cookie-less today.

With respect to creative, copywriters can breathe easy, according to Havas Media Group. The group has made public its intent to use AI to optimize creative, not replace its creatives.

________

Publicis is placing AI at the very core of its business. The last six years have seen Publicis evolve from a holding company to a platform — and now, they’re using AI to become the industry’s first intelligent system. Publicis is now positioned to harness the power of AI by connecting every data point, across business units and geographies, to put the data in the hands of all its people. In a January 2024 press release, they shared that “everyone within Publicis will become a data analyst, an engineer, an intelligence partner, with all the information they need at their fingertips to supercharge client growth.”

__________________________________

Bottomline

The AI landscape will be a bit of a Wild West for some time still, especially while the technology continues to evolve at breakneck speed. Some advertising business leaders see generative AI as an accelerant for the industry, seeking to leverage the tech to enhance work and provide increased strategic value. Yet, others are more sanguine in their approach, preferring to wade in more slowly as they assess the boundaries of what’s possible — uncovering ways to use AI tech as an enabler instead of a total solution.

Looking for guidance on how to leverage AI for your company? Creative Circle offers a full suite of creative services focused on solving business challenges leveraging this new technology. Once upon a time, the rise of the internet struck fear into the hearts of many, but here we are today, creating great work that matters — it just might look a bit different than our pre-WiFi days.

The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is the juggernaut conference that whips Vegas into a tech-infused froth every year. It’s a proving ground for innovative technologies, where brands come to do business, meet new partners, and flashily debut their latest releases and most visionary breakthroughs. CES began in the Big Apple back in 1967, with 250 exhibitors and 17,500 attendees — CES 2024 wrapped up on January 12th, with more than 135,000 people from 150 countries attending.

Produced and run by the Consumer Technology Association, CES is the only tradeshow that brings the entire tech landscape together at a singular event. From the early days of developers, manufacturers, and suppliers of hardware, software, and tech delivery systems, to today — we’re now seeing representation from across all parts of the consumer technology industry and business verticals. We’re talking everything from augmented and virtual reality, Web3, smart cities, adult entertainment, robotics, sports, medicine, and of course… artificial intelligence.

CES 2024 was steeped with AI. From general artificial intelligence that has been around for years (think virtual assistants and chatbots) to generative AI-infused products, AI was the hot-ticket item this year and was seemingly in everything, everywhere, all at once — revolutionizing user experience, increasing accessibility, and boosting efficiency. There were even separate AI-themed event tracks, from the Spoon: Food Tech Summit, which delves into how AI is transforming the food industry with tools like Chef Watson, to a track on AI-driven retail experiences.

Here’s a look at some of the more fascinating and creative ways today’s most innovative tech brands are using AI at this year’s consumer electronics tradeshow.

NuraLogix’s “Magic” Mirror

Dreamed up by digital health company NuraLogix, the Anura MagicMirror is the first of its kind. It analyzes the blood flow in your face to monitor vitals like blood pressure and assess your risk of heart disease. It can guess your age based on your complexion and even gauge how stressed you may be. While it’s not directly accessible to consumers for home use (yet), you may see the MagicMirror in gyms, clinics, and other places where people are monitoring their health and well-being and where standard mirrors exist today. The device uses NuraLogix’s Affective AI technology, DeepAffex, which uses pattern recognition to inform its findings. As the use of AI broadens, devices like the MagicMirror will become less Jetsons and more Modern Family. To see it use, check out this video of CNET’s Nick Wolny giving it a go.

Volkswagen’s Enhanced EVs

AI is whipping Volkswagen EVs into shape by integrating ChatGPT into its line of electric vehicles, including the ID 3, ID 4, and ID 5. The AI chatbot is also coming to the fuel-powered Golf, Passat, and Tiguan, enabling drivers to ask their cars for restaurant recommendations, healthy pet food options, best face glitter, and more.

Dell’s AI-enabled Laptops

Dell’s new line of XPS laptops will feature a slew of built-in AI enhancements, including an additional processor for on-device AI computing and a dedicated Microsoft Copilot key. Copilot is Microsoft’s generative AI assistant, which can help you search the web, summarize documents, or create generative images — all part of Microsoft’s aim to be a leader in artificial intelligence. This line of AI-souped up laptops is slated to hit stores soon, though for those chomping at the bit, it may not be soon enough.

Baracoda’s Wellness-minded Mirror

AI-infused mirrors were truly shining at CES 2024. Healthtech pioneer Baracoda unveiled BMind, the world’s first smart mirror for mental well-being, which acts as a health companion that’s able to identify mood and help you users manage stress. It provides personalized recommendations and experiences based on your mental state by harnessing cutting-edge generative AI with Computer Vision and Large Learning Models (LLM) to interpret language, expressions, and gestures. BMind gathers information without the use of any invasive tech, helping curb drab moods and feelings of loneliness through immersive experiences, including light, sound, visuals, and coaching. The product actually won a CES Innovation Award this year in the smart home category.

Capella’s Subscription-based Parenting App

Welcome to the brave new world of parenting, where a smartphone app can “translate” your little one’s cries, telling you whether they’re tired, uncomfortable, hungry, or in need of a diaper change via technology that can decipher a baby’s needs using AI. Cappella says its technology is about 95% accurate, versus roughly 30% for humans who try to discern their babies’ needs on their own. The Capella app costs $10 a month — and, don’t fret, the company is working on using AI to soothe and comfort your baby, too.

Seergrills’s Perfectly Timed Grill

Say hello to the Perfecta Grill, which uses AI to grill your steak to perfection. It’s essentially a $3,500 toaster for steak that promises that perfect sizzling meat in two minutes. Utilizing an unusual vertical infrared oven, this high-tech grill reaches temperatures over 1,000 degrees, cooking thick steaks and chops in mere minutes. While the price tag keeps the Perfecta in the land of the .1%, it shows a growing trend towards more in-home AI innovation.

Oclean’s “Ultra” Smart Brush

AI has arrived for your teeth, too! The Oclean X Ultra S uses AI to make you a better brusher by providing real-time feedback on your brushing activity. Using bone conduction technology, an AI voice guide then offers tips on upleveling your brushing technique and offer tips to help improve it. The toothbrush will tell you if you’re using too much (or too little) pressure or favoring one side, all via spoken directions only you can hear. What’s more, the built-in display gives instant feedback on any missed spots, along with a brushing score. Already available in Europe, the Oclean X Ultra will have its US launch this fall, with a $100+ price tag.

Samsung’s Image-enhancing TV

Samsung’s 8K QLED TV models can use AI to upscale imagery, converting standard definition, or SD, content up, up, up to an 8K resolution — an industry first, according to the company. These televisions will also be able to create AI-generated imagery and automatically switch TV modes depending on the type of content being played. In short, this new AI-powered TV can bring your favorite old school TV shows like I Dream of Jeanie or I Love Lucy into the 21st century by dramatically improving their resolution.

Replica Studios & SAG-AFTRA’s Historic AI Voice Agreement

The Screen Actors Guild – American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, or SAG-AFTRA, the world’s largest labor union representing performers, and Replica Studios, an AI voice technology company, made a huge joint announcement at CES. The two entities entered into an agreement, which will pay voice actors for the licensing of digital replicas of their voices for use in video games. This agreement is the very first time an organization like SAG-AFTRA has worked to codify consent and compensation for AI replicas of actor and performer voices. AI was one of the thornier issues debated at length between the actors’ and screenwriters’ unions and television studio executives during last year’s major strikes, with Hollywood screenwriters securing significant guardrails against artificial intelligence themselves — one of the first major labor wars about generative AI in the creative workplace.

__________________________________

Takeaway

CES 2024 gave us a taste of how artificial intelligence tech is being infused into future products—and what that means for us all as consumers, marketers, and more. The future is coming, and it appears AI is an increasingly large part of it, from food to entertainment to home products and more.

Generative AI has the potential to scale cross-medium creation while improving efficiencies throughout the process, making new innovations like those we’ve seen at CES 2024 possible — and it’s no longer just in the workplace. If you want to quickly augment your organization’s AI prowess, partner with talent who has the hard skills to produce high-quality content and results using the AI tools, prompts, and methods to power the brands and products of tomorrow.

If you want to see what generative AI can do for your business, let Creative Circle be your guide.

GET IN TOUCH

The speed and scale at which generative AI works is truly game-changing, but could it really be that artificial intelligence brings with it only good news? The answer depends on your approach. While the benefits of the technology are manifold, unsupervised AI runs the risk of being clouded by bias, and potentially creating content that puts organizations in jeopardy of noncompliance and other risk.

In fact, Capgemini found 51% of executives say that lack of clarity on underlying data used to train generative Al programs is their top concern, followed by 45% who say they lack confidence that the generative Al programs are fair (inclusive of all population groups). These concerns highlight just how crucial it is for organizations to take steps to ensure greater transparency and accountability in the development and deployment of AI programs in order to build trust.

Reducing Bias Requires Transparency and Oversight

Transparency and oversight are the name of the game when it comes to working with AI. As a technology created by human beings, no matter how advanced, it’s inherently exposed to bias from the get-go. However, with the right combination of talent and tools, you can nip bias in the bud and generate inclusive content that truly stands out.

Creative teams that are skilled at working with AI should understand what to look for in the tools they use to pick out bias. They want transparency on the methods used to generate content and oversight on the way AI models are trained, so they can correct bias in their content and better understand where it originates.

Choosing the right third-party tools and platforms to facilitate this is crucial, as is a partnership with the data science teams that implement them. With the right tools and data, and the skills to back it all up, teams can better understand how to craft effective prompts that generate inclusive content and implement methods to eliminate bias in the first place.

Compliance Takes Expert AI and Expert Humans

Compliance can take many forms. In regulated industries like healthcare and financial services, it requires adherence to industry guidelines. For other organizations, it may consist of how consumer data is used to market. It’s true that artificial intelligence can be taught rules to follow, but these rules are often highly nuanced and fast-changing.

Simply relying on AI alone to create content will not result in compliant content. It takes skilled creative teams that are well-versed in the areas of compliance and know where and when to rely on other internal experts to check that content is ready for its audiences. While AI can be trained on compliance and regulations, in a fast-moving world of ever-changing requirements, highly trained human teams can work with artificial intelligence to create marketing content that is both highly personalized and fully compliant.

This all means that compliance review must be built into a process that also includes dynamic generation of personalized content from the beginning. A highly trained creative team understands the elements of a marketing campaign that can and should be personalized, as well as those that need to remain unchanged for compliance reasons.

After all, there won’t be a substitute for human insights and strategic thinking any time soon. Thus, the real strength of utilizing AI isn’t in replacing strong team members; it is in augmenting them. Or, as Barry Asin, President of SIA, puts it, “Generative AI won’t take your job, but someone using it will…It’s not technology alone, it’s the ability of people to work with the technology.”

__________________________________

Takeaway

The rise of generative AI we’re currently witnessing has the capability to dramatically expand the scope of content creation in a way we’ve never seen before — and this new era comes with its own unique set of challenges. Getting the best possible results takes a not-so-secret ingredient: talented creatives who are skilled in the methods that enable artificial intelligence to shine, while understanding where humans still have a vital role to play.

If you’re looking to get truly outstanding results from working with generative AI, you’ve come to the right place! Check out our latest release, The CMO’s Guide to Exceptional AI Content, to learn exactly how you can do it too.

Download the Guide

Our AI Insights blog series continues below. Catch the first installation here if you missed it!

AI is an immensely powerful tool that is revolutionizing the world of content creation as we speak. In addition to its ability to generate better results from content creation efforts — in conjunction with knowledgeable creative teams — can ensure that content is brand-safe, available in real-time, at scale. For this reason, it’s rapidly gaining in popularity across industries and job functions.

As AI continues to evolve, its potential for automation is becoming even more profound. According to Gartner, by 2026, 20% of repetitive processes will be automated by domain-specific GenAI implementations in every industry. This means that AI will have an increasingly important role to play in the workplace, streamlining processes and freeing up valuable time for more complex and impactful tasks.

The combination of AI and knowledgeable creative teams is a recipe for success, and we can expect to see even more exciting developments in this space in the years to come. With the power of AI at our fingertips, the possibilities for content creation and automation are truly endless.

Efficiency Without Sacrifice

The combination of top creative talent and artificial intelligence has proven to be a game-changer for marketers. With AI, marketers can analyze vast amounts of data, identify patterns, and generate new insights that can inform their decision-making. By automating tasks that are repetitive and time-consuming, the technology can free up marketers to focus on more strategic and creative activities and, as a result, allow them to deliver more impactful campaigns and content that drive better business results with their target audience.

Of course, what good is an increase in efficiency if you don’t have the marketing results to match? Optimizing the cost to deliver high-performing marketing campaigns and content is one of the major benefits of an approach that combines top creative talent with artificial intelligence.

Moreover, generative AI has been found to increase the performance of marketing campaigns significantly—a testament to AI-powered marketing strategies. In fact, 58% of US marketers said increased performance is a benefit of generative AI, according to eMarketer. With this heightened level of efficiency, the potential impact on productivity is truly impressive.

One Input, Many Outputs

The potential of generative AI in content creation goes beyond just omnichannel customer experience. Generative AI’s ability to take text-based inputs and translate them into a variety of mediums — from text-based blogs, to images, videos, and more — means that the future of content marketing and creation can utilize generative AI to create content for an omnichannel customer experience.

This is just another way in which creative teams can leverage generative AI to create highly personalized and targeted content for their customers, spending less time resizing, reformatting, and researching the latest size requirements for each of your marketing channels. This gives them more time to focus on creating great content that is impactful and ready to be translated into many formats for your omnichannel communications.

Ultimately, generative AI has the potential to revolutionize the way we approach content creation and marketing. Given the technology’s capacity to create content for multiple channels, at scale, and with unprecedented levels of personalization, the future of how humans create content is indeed exciting.

Humans Strategize, AI Multiplies

Generative AI technology has the potential to revolutionize the way we approach marketing and communication activities. With the ability to automate the work activities that absorb as much as 70% of employees’ work time, generative AI provides an opportunity to allow humans to be more strategic, and for the marketing work they perform to be more efficient and scale to meet consumers’ rising expectations for more tailored, personalized experiences.

By 2025, Gartner predicts AI avatars leveraging text-to-video using generative AI technology will support 70% of digital and marketing communications, up from less than 5% in 2022. This significant shift will allow companies to provide their customers with more tailored and personalized experiences, ultimately leading ultimately lead to greater brand loyalty and customer satisfaction.

When done well, this means that your creative talent spends their time and focus on the things that matter, like making sure your messaging is on-brand and laser-focused on your target audiences. Then, generative AI can produce the many brand-safe variants that your customers have come to expect. By embracing this technology, companies can stay ahead of the curve and meet the rising expectations of their customers while maximizing the effectiveness of their marketing campaigns.

__________________________________

Takeaway

Fulfilling the promise of generative AI, delivering great results at scale in a brand-safe and ethical manner, takes more than a simple software solution, however. It takes a combination of skilled talent using artificial intelligence tools in an intentional, strategic manner.

Generative AI has the potential to scale content creation and allow cross-medium creation, while improving efficiencies throughout the process. Get the best of it all by partnering generative AI with talent who knows and understands how to get the best results with the prompts, methods, and tools that will power tomorrow’s personalized customer experiences.

Our AI Insights blog series continues, next delving into the process of embracing scale while avoiding bias and non-compliance when working with generative AI. Continue reading here!

It’s hard to avoid the buzz around artificial intelligence these days, and unlike some fads that have come and gone over the years, there’s good reason to take notice of this one. Marketing and communications teams are amongst those who have the most to gain from these technologies, thanks to their immediate, practical application for organizations today.

In this setting, AI makes more sense than ever: after all, why walk up the stairs in a tall building when you can take the elevator instead? In fact, McKinsey estimates that generative AI could add the equivalent of roughly $3 trillion to the global economy, with 75% of that falling into marketing and other areas directly related to the customer experience.

Great Results, with a New Kind of Partnership

With customer expectations to receive personalized content, offers, and experiences constantly increasing, brands are feeling added pressure to ensure their content marketing is multi-channel, brand-compliant, and personalized down to the customer in the moment they need it. This means that more content is needed, and creating it at scale, across the channels, and in the multiple variants that are needed for hyper-personalization requires a level of effort that few if any marketing teams can produce on their own, let alone sustain. Thus, a new kind of partnership is needed.

The partnership we’re referring to, of course, is one between creative talent and their AI counterparts: the methods and platforms that are the toolset of the creative talent of tomorrow. This partnership leads to effective results, while saving copious amounts of time and focusing your creative talent on the work that matters. According to Gartner, 30% of outbound marketing messages from large organizations will be personalized using generative AI tools by 2025, up from less than 2% in 2022.

Better ideas, More Quickly

With remote and hybrid work, plus an increased demand on marketers, it can be hard to schedule in-depth brainstorming sessions for every new initiative that “needed to launch yesterday.” Smart brands are getting great concepts and ideas more quickly by combining human and AI brainstorming.

Generative AI is great at building on starting points provided by humans, and skilled creatives who understand how to prompt artificial intelligence-based tools effectively can supercharge the idea generation process with this AI-human hybrid method. When working with well-crafted prompts, AI can generate a multitude of potential ideas that creative teams can edit and build upon, eliminating any that may not be as relevant.

Scaling to the Occasion

If you operate on multiple marketing channels, have several audience segments, conduct business in several geographies, and/or have other demands that require content variations, you know the scaling issues that come with creating content for even the most routine campaigns. And when it comes to hyper-personalizing content down to the individual customer level, even the largest marketing department can quickly become overloaded.

Take this for instance: If an apparel retailer that sells several product lines on its multi-channel marketing platforms to different audiences in more than one geography creates a targeted campaign, they’ll need to create the following:

Multiple variants of copy and materials for each combination of product (e.g., shoes, shirts, jackets, etc.) and audience (e.g., gender, age, HHI, etc.)
Resized and reformatted the materials for each marketing channel (e.g., social media platforms, email, website, mobile app, etc.)
Unique country/language variations for each geography (e.g., US English, UK English, Spanish, German, etc.)

Keep in mind that this doesn’t account for personalized content that is tailored to the individual. This type of hyper-personalization can build on the above and tailor content to the individual based on things like:

Recent purchase behavior and frequency of purchases
Specific demographic information
Customer loyalty information

All of this adds up to many variations of content to be created. Rest assured, though, generative AI is up to the task of scaling content creation to meet customer expectations for personalized content and experiences.

__________________________________

Takeaway

Maximizing the results of generative AI with the right tools and methods, piloted by skilled prompt engineers and creative talent, means forming a new kind of partnership between humans and artificial intelligence — and it does not require any sacrifices on the outcomes you should expect either.

For organizations that are unsure of where to start, bringing in freelance experts to help with strategy and setup of an AI strategy can accelerate this shift. Whether it’s automation of text content variations or something more advanced, having the right team to set up a personalization strategy can take a generic-feeling marketing campaign and make it compelling and increase conversions.

Our AI Insights blog series continues, exploring what it truly means to effectively personalize content at scale with generative AI. Continue reading here!

Algorithms, automation, and machine learning are quickly becoming entrenched in today’s recruitment process. According to a recent survey, at least 99% of all Fortune 500 companies are now using AI tools to screen candidates during their hiring process.

Recruiters and hiring managers are using AI to help sort through vast quantities of applications and skim the cream off the top of the applicant pool, often using AI technology to “parse” resumes to streamline the hiring process. Resume parsers extract, analyze, and store resume data, which is then categorized, sorted, and searched via an automated process to assist a very human hiring manager or recruiter. Here are some tips that make a resume parser-friendly:

Brevity wins the game — think bullets over paragraphs
Keep the design simple — use a standard font, include your name in the file name, and nix the headers and footers
No infographics, tables, or word art
Keywords are key — research the role and cross-reference skills from past jobs that are in line with what is in the job description

By filtering out resumes that don’t have the necessary criteria, parsing software driven by AI can save countless hours that it would otherwise take to read through each application manually and has been largely adopted across industries. But just as hiring managers have leveraged AI to make their jobs easier, candidates have similarly gotten on the AI bandwagon, using the technology to quickly craft resumes and cover letters.

Like It or Not, Candidates Are Using AI, Too

Hiring managers, however, are not the only ones using AI to get a leg up in the hiring game — candidates have caught on to this time-saver and are increasingly using generative AI apps like ChatGPT to ramp up their resumes. Savvy job seekers know that customizing their resume to match a job posting gives them a leg up in the initial screening process — which can be tedious and time-consuming. AI resume-builders, however, promise fast and easy CV customization. It’s no surprise that the adoption of generative AI for resume-building is on the rise.

Results from a poll of more than 1,000 job seekers who had used ChatGPT in their job search by ResumeBuilder.com found that:

Nearly half of those surveyed — 46% — said that they had used ChatGPT to write their resumes or cover letters.
70% shared that they had a better response rate when they used AI-generated materials.
40% believe that their interviewers were not aware that they had used ChatGPT to craft their job application materials.
Just 11% said they were turned down for a job because they’d used ChatGPT.

The potential risks are outweighed by the time-saving benefits for most job seekers, with 88% of those surveyed saying that they’re “somewhat” (41%) or “highly” (47%) likely to keep using ChatGPT to write their resumes and cover letters in the future.

Screening Resumes Is Now More Involved than Ever

Just as AI has inculcated itself into hiring managers’ toolkits, it is increasingly becoming a candidate tool, too. While we like to think that most candidates are honest when listing their skills and professional experience — as AI technology proliferates and expands in use, so do those who use it disingenuously.

Candidates who rely solely on AI to craft their resumes may end up with ones full of inaccurate information. And in a bizarre twist of tech fate, they in theory could even find themselves using the same exact resume as another candidate who used the same AI tool to craft theirs.

As AI ramps up for hiring managers and job applicants, it has become even more critical to develop innovative screening strategies to ensure that the person on paper matches the abilities of the one in real life. Some simple ways to see if AI has overly doctored a resume include generic phrasing, repetitive language, and odd formatting. AI could be at play if the resume you receive has a markedly different writing style than the other application materials.

The good news is that some identification strategies can help you get the quality candidates you seek.

Here Are Some Smart Identification Strategies for Hiring Managers

While the game is changing, not all hope is lost. The hope is that after you interview a candidate, you’ve gained a sense of who they are. To ensure you get quality (and qualified) candidates, here are some smart strategies that can help.

Ask questions that are experience-based as part of your hiring process. To see if a candidate has the knowledge to succeed at your company, ask questions about their process for solving business problems specific to your industry.
Pay close attention to the skills section. While it’s a smart move to use the job description to guide what skills are highlighted, if a candidate’s skills are identical to the job description, however, with little deviation, it may be a sign that AI authored the resume and that the applicant did not refine it to reflect their true professional abilities.
Rev up your use of references. Be curious and take the time to contact all a candidate’s references. Take stock not just of the answers, but the tone in response to questions you ask. And perhaps look to see if there are any testimonials on a candidate’s LinkedIn page when vetting potential hires.
Carefully assess emails versus interview presentations. Listen for possible variances between what is written on a candidate’s application and what they share about their experience during the interview. Your goal is gauge how authentically the candidate has depicted their professional skills and background. If a resume shows stellar experience, but the person doesn’t seem to be familiar with the industry in the way you would imagine from the document — it can become quickly apparent that the author was ChatGPT or some other AI resume builder.
Cross-reference the job application with how the candidate is positioned on LinkedIn and other professional platforms. Be on the lookout for divergent narratives. If the story on LinkedIn is inconsistent with the experience listed on a candidate’s resume or does not match up with how they talk about their experience in an interview, it may indicate that some of their story was falsified with the help of AI. Take the time to compare materials and interactions to get the complete picture.
Go beyond resumes and cover letters to ensure that you hire qualified candidates. During the interview, make sure to ask questions about how the candidate might solve a real problem they may face in the role to gauge how ready they are to hit the ground running. For certain roles, sample projects and practical exercises can help you determine if a candidate can do the work that they say they can do.
AI resume screening tools are just one tool in the box. Resume screening is just one step in the hiring process — the value of this type of tool is to make sure that spam candidates who are not qualified are eliminated as quickly as possible, so hiring managers can focus on those with the skills and experience to succeed in the role. Please keep in mind that AI screening is a tool, not a total solution — it can speed up screening and reduce manual effort, but it’s just one part of the process. It’s critical to do your due diligence and spend time interviewing and vetting possible hires on a more personal level.

__________________________________

Takeaway

Resume screening has always been a critical step in the hiring process, but the game has changed with the advent of AI. While existing tools can help separate the qualified from the unqualified candidates, it’s essential that you dive more deeply into a candidate’s skills and background to ensure that the potential hire you are considering has the experience and know-how listed on their resume.

Change is the only constant — hiring processes will keep evolving — and it’s essential that your company’s practices do, too. If you’re looking for guidance on how to best leverage the power of AI and talent, Creative Circle can help keep you ahead of the curve.