For the past several months, our editorial team’s inboxes have been flooded with AI-related news. New AI-powered startups are grabbing coverage alongside products from ad tech’s bold-faced names reimagined with AI.
So, what types of functions are most being replaced by AI? Lately, A/B testing and creative optimization platforms have been turning up most frequently, AdExchanger Associate Editor Joanna Gerber says. Especially as brands now generate hundreds of (AI-generated) creative versions, they need to now use AI to optimize their media.
Thinking even more futuristically, an emerging optimization trend uses AI audience personas to test creative before brands need to spend a dollar running those ads in the wild.
Besides optimization, many ad tech companies are creating agent-powered version of their platform. The idea is to make it easier for customers to use their tech by deploying agents that can do things like translate campaign briefs into media plans and tweak ad creative by looking at a handful of ad assets.
Historically, many companies described their AI products as offering capabilities to free up employees for more strategic work. They tiptoed around any conversations about job loss. But with large tech companies laying off people left and right citing AI, that talk track has ended.
“Of the things that scares me the most is that companies are excited and eager and willing to say to me, ‘This is so effective and so quick and speeds things up so much that we can do the same work with a third of the people.’” Gerber says. “And it dumbfounds me every single time.”
