At last week's annual IAB Newfronts, major ad-funded platforms were busy announcing a range of new content, ad formats and measurement tools.
While major social platforms announced new AI upgrades for users and advertisers, streaming TV startups also announced new ways to use visual AI and machine learning for targeting and measurement. Meta talked about using AI to predict his creator content organically for paid partners, using ML to suggest creators for brands, and tools to resize videos for Reels. . Hours later, TikTok announced it would add generated AI to its Pulse Lineups ad product and also vowed to challenge the newly signed ban in U.S. court. snap, positioned The company said it is “not social media” and explained how it uses AI to create augmented reality lenses for users and advertisers within minutes.
Big companies like Samsung are also focusing their events on how they are leveraging AI for content, advertising, and audiences. Meanwhile, streaming providers that have announced new AI tools include Canela Media, which announced it is using AI for contextual ad targeting, such as showing engagement ring ads during dating shows. Another, Samba TV, said it is working with advertisers to beta test its new Samba AI platform, which uses visual AI to identify people and products in programming to aid in contextual targeting and measurement. Ta.
“For the first time ever, we can see data about actors, scenes, emotions, and context,” Samba TV founder Ashwin Navin said during a live demo on stage at NewFront. “We recognize the products you see on the screen and map them to products that are currently available for purchase online.”
The week started with Google, with closing arguments in an antitrust case over search and search advertising also taking place Thursday and Friday. One of the new AI features will allow marketers to generate potential audience segments based on campaign goals. More CTV-specific signals will soon be added to this, such as content genre and whether the content is live.
Bill Reardon, general manager of enterprise platforms at Google Ads, said sneaker brands didn't realize they needed to target people in the concert ticket market or pay a different price for ads shown to sneaker collectors. I have given an example of what you might want to do. . People who buy occasionally.
“You're no longer limited to bottom-of-funnel signals,” Reardon says. “… now also includes brand awareness and consideration goals. This means you can optimize things like screen time.”
Speaking before Google's presentation, IAB CEO David Cohen said the group's 2024 survey of marketers found that one-third of companies are already using AI to support their data sets. He said that it was found that he was making use of it. While Cohen predicted the prevalence of AI throughout the marketing industry, he also quoted John D. Rockefeller's famous words, “Don't be afraid to give up the good for the great.” .
There is perhaps some irony in the Standard Oil founder being quoted at a Google event last week. In 1911, Rockefeller's company also faced antitrust litigation under the Sherman Act, which broke up the Gilded Age oil monopoly. But it's hard to know whether Cohen's choice of words was just a coincidence.
Despite all the promise and myriad concerns about AI, the companies that participated in NewFronts didn't spend much time talking about strategies for safely developing and deploying AI models and applications. Privacy was also largely an afterthought, except for occasional mention during various presentations.
Prompts and products: More AI news
- A U.S. senator has introduced a new Secure AI Act aimed at preventing security breaches in AI systems.
- AI came up several times during closing arguments in the antitrust case between Google and the US Department of Justice. (Read more in Thursday and Friday's stories.)
- Newly unsealed documents in Google's antitrust case show a 2019 email from Microsoft's CTO Kevin Scott, who told CEO Satya Nadella He said he was “very concerned” that he was “years behind our competitors” when it came to training large-scale language models.
- A major publisher has announced a new AI deal with a technology company. The FT will have OpenAI use its content to train its AI systems, but Axel Springer's expanded deal with Microsoft includes more ways to experiment with content and advertising through chatbots. include.
- A group of eight newspaper companies has filed a lawsuit against the tech companies, accusing OpenAI and Microsoft of violating copyright laws by scraping their data to train AI models.
- Data privacy groups have filed a new complaint against OpenAI in Europe, alleging that the startup violates GDPR with high levels of inaccuracies.
- OpenAI is reportedly preparing to unveil its own AI search engine that will compete with other startups like Perplexity, You, Arc, Brave, and giants like Google.
- AI company Globant has announced a new sponsorship with F1 that includes brand integration and how AI can be used to improve digital information for fans and teams.
- Last week, generative AI startup Runway hosted an AI film festival in Los Angeles and plans to hold another screening in New York City this week.
- Amazon announced the general availability of Amazon Q, its enterprise business assistant. This also helps employees use natural language to describe the apps they want to build using their own enterprise data.
- Companies like Amazon, eBay, and Apple all mention in their quarterly earnings how they leverage AI in parts of their business. Apple CEO Tim Cook also told investors that there is a “huge opportunity” for generative AI across businesses, and that he can expect more AI updates soon. (Apple will also be holding an event this week with more hardware and software news.)
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