On October 7-8 in Silicon Valley, GPT Party 2.0 took place — the largest Russian-speaking networking event dedicated to artificial intelligence. Over 300 people gathered at Plug and Play to meet leading experts, entrepreneurs, and investors, discuss the latest trends in artificial intelligence, and gain practical knowledge. In panel discussions focused on marketing and content, we discussed how marketing will change with the use of AI, whether content creators will be left without work, and how artificial intelligence will transform these areas. We also explored how marketers and content creators can truly effectively use AI. The speakers for the panel discussions were: Alex Krol, Vitaly Timoshenko, Alexander Vysotsky, Alex Zhuravlev, Alexander Mamaev, Daniil Kravtsov, Mikael Yan, Dan Brodovich, Roman Maximov.
How will creative professions change? Will people creating content still be needed? Alexander Mamaev: “Our society is not much different from what it was in Roman times: we all want bread and circuses. Only the tools change over time, and now for bread and circuses, we don’t necessarily have to go to stadiums. Just put on the right glasses, and you already have a beautiful picture on the screen, which our brain focuses more attention on. Therefore, those people who can create the most focus-worthy content, this creativity, will be more relevant. The human brain is fundamentally different from artificial intelligence in that it has consciousness. Consciousness will always be one step ahead and will create something new that simply cannot be compensated by any technology, but technology will allow this idea to be made much more colorful and interesting for any person.” So, for truly unique creative content creators, the future is not threatening, and these people will be able to realize themselves? Alexander Vysotsky: “We have practical experience in our company: we make a lot of educational content, which is always associated with presentations. There is a certain workflow when theses are developed for filling, and then it is necessary to make a beautiful visualization. Earlier, this process was painful and excruciating. It all starts with a person who must give the designer a task. And there are many requirements for him: he must have a cultural background, education, and good artistic taste, he must understand the point of view of the content consumer, what emotions to create in him, then the designer must enter the work. Visualization was a long, expensive, and painful process, but then Midjourney, DALL-E appeared, and this process became amazingly easy. But notice, it did not make our lives easier in terms of content creation. A person who is not educated and does not understand their target audience will not be able to do something worthy with Midjourney or DALL-E. Therefore, I am very pessimistic about artificial intelligence at the stage of development it is at today. These are cool tools that significantly speed up and simplify the process, but only if you know exactly what you want to get.” Another interesting question: we understand how to apply AI to filter candidates for a position in the company. Are such approaches used in the search for ideal startups? And can it be applied in this way? Alex Zhuravlev: “Yes, it is already being applied. It all depends on the volume of incoming data and the stage of startup development. If the startup is at the very early stage and we only have access to the presentation and information about the founders, then this is not enough to decide whether to continue communication. If we are talking about later stages when there is already a data room, financial data, and so on, then there are developments in this direction for the implementation of AI. I can’t say that we fully use AI, but we use artificial intelligence when we need to quickly study the market and competitors. We have definitely become more efficient with these tools, have started reviewing more projects. At the same time, we always invest in people, and it is very difficult for AI to determine whether we will like the founder or not. In general, the relationship between the fund and the founder is similar to a partnership between a husband and wife. When we enter into a deal, we enter into a partnership for at least five years with this person, and we cannot delegate this decision to artificial intelligence. Therefore, the decision always remains with people, but AI here definitely helps.” In this room, there are two groups of people: those who believe that digital workers should take on certain positions, and those who believe in AI assistants that will help employees perform routine processes and give them the opportunity to work only 3 hours a week, spending more time with family. Which of these options is closer to you? Alexander Vysotsky: “We are already living in a world where there are copilots, such as Midjourney or ChatGPT, that help speed up work. As a manager, there is undoubtedly a creative side to the job, but also a lot of routine: you need to keep track of projects, tasks, deadlines, and secondary metrics. Artificial intelligence can be a powerful assistant to a manager, suggesting what to pay attention to in the company or in the work of employees. I don’t really believe that artificial intelligence will be able to create creative ideas regarding the future. AI, as it is today, can only offer what matches our expectations. I’m not sure about its creative function, but I think that 80-90% of management tasks at various levels can be solved with the help of artificial intelligence. I believe that the question of digital employees and assistants should be viewed from the perspective of the market and competition. We need creative people who can quickly master complex tools, and we have a problem with this today. I highly value creative people, but I doubt that we can make all people creative and thinking. Returning to the question of artificial intelligence tools, I think they give a significant advantage and increase the productivity of creative people. In the future, companies will strive to attract such employees, and their work will be well paid.” How do you feel about implementing AI in the field of corporate training, for example, creating an assistant that could create a personal development path? Vitaly Timoshenko: “We are now at a stage where we can conduct an assessment and determine what skills this person lacks, what are their weak sides. For instance, if this person hasn’t studied an important regulation in their field of activity, we won’t just tell them to go and learn it, but will provide a training course that will specifically suit their needs. Eventually, each employee will have their personal assistant, who will train them considering their goals and requests. It will be interesting, engaging, and interactive. I sincerely believe in this.”
Imagine that AI could predict the professional potential of children and guide them along a certain career path. Would you trust the education of your children and grandchildren to artificial intelligence? Alex Krol: “I am creating such a teacher. The advantage of ChatGPT is not that it is smart or stupid, but that it is not afraid to ask any question, and you are not afraid to look stupid in front of it. It is devoid of human problems, and I have not yet seen a more effective teacher.” How is AI currently helping to make content more saleable? Dan Brodovich: “There is GetHuman AI, which allows for mass personalization of content. If it used to take a lot of time, now AI allows you to create and scale such things very easily and quickly. And, again, in GetHuman AI, add the name of a specific person and information about them. That is, AI allows you to personalize content not only in terms of targeting, but also to modify and make it more relevant to people. At TikTok, we experiment a lot with different levels of personalization, and we understand that the more personalized the content, the more people use the product. Numerous studies show that when people see more relevant content for them, a completely different part of the brain lights up. In terms of sales, this helps to instantly increase conversion.” There is a problem that AI now shows that advertising creative is poorly made, but does not say how to improve it. What do you think about that? Roman Maximov: “Now this problem is solved, for example, by Madgicx. It perfectly shows what needs to be done to be good. They call it AI tips, but in fact, it says where and what you forgot to do according to a certain order of evaluating advertising campaigns. Now for small tasks, there are small softwares. The advantage of AI is that it helps to test a bunch of creatives and offers and understand which creative is the most winning. If two years ago to test 20 hypotheses on 100 banners we needed at least two days for design, now we can look at a huge number of test hypotheses in one day.” Daniil Kravtsov: “I would add that content can be different. Indeed, in creating films or scripts, where it is difficult to test, people will be for a long time. But in advertising, AI will definitely take its place because right now you can generate thousands of variants and test them cheaply.” What prospects do you see for the use of AI in content and marketing? Mikael Yan: “I think there will be a merger of marketing and sales. And if before marketing was broad outreach that then turned into sales, then with the use of artificial intelligence, the process can become fully automated. Now PLG is developing, there are no sales at all there, and content plays a very big role. The main task becomes to get the initial point of human attention, which can then be translated into a sales chain. It seems to me that in this situation, AI will always win when you need to test something because it can create a billion versions. People will always do better with meanings. A person can feel the spirit of the times and thus create something that will hook other people. In my picture of the world, AI has no consciousness, it has no subjective picture of the world, experiences. AI can be trained to mislead a person, cause pity and empathy in him, but this does not mean that AI has a subjective internal experience. Emulation will not give it access to resonance in human society.”
