Never gets tired, never stops learning

Sharing another dispatch from the 'robots are coming to take all our jobs away' world with this recent piece from Digiday, "Who needs media planners when a tireless robot named Albert can do the job?".

The back story of this particular implementation of AI to replace, (or as we will learn, perhaps just augment or supplement human labor), comes from advertising, where the relatively new concept of programmatic digital advertising has emerged in the last few years. Part of the process of getting things like banner ads, Facebook ads, display ads, and even branded video ads in front of consumers involves marketers choosing the type of ads to show, the content of those ads, the days/times to show the ads, and finally the platforms upon which to push the ads to.

If it all sounds pretty complex to you, then you're right.

Enter "Albert." As per the Digiday piece once the advertiser, (in this case Dole Foods), set some blanket objectives and goals, then Albert determined what media to invest in at what times and in what formats. And it also decided where to spend the brand’s budget. On a real-time basis, it was able to figure out the right combinations for creative and headlines.  For example, once Albert determined that Dole’s user engagement rate on Facebook was 40 percent higher for mobile than desktop, Albert shifted more budget to mobile.

The results have been impressive; According to Dole, the brand had an 87 percent in increase in sales versus the prior year.

Why bring this up here, on a quasi-HR blog?

Because it highlights really clearly, a real-life example of the conditions of work that are most ripe for automation, (or at least augmentation). Namely, a data-intensive, detailed, and heavy data volume environment that has to be analyzed, a fast-moving and rapidly paced set of changing conditions that need to be reacted to in real-time, (and 24/7), and finally, the need to be constantly assessing outcomes and making comparisons of choices in order to adjust strategies and execution plans to optimize for the desired outcomes.

People are good at those things. But AI like Albert might be (probably are) better at those things.

But in the piece we also see the needed and hard-to-automate contributions of the marketing people at Dole as well.

They have to give Albert the direction and set the desired business goals - sales, clicks, 'likes', etc.

They have to develop the various creative content and options from which Albert will eventually choose to run. 

And finally, they have to know if Albert's recommendations actually do make sense and 'fit' with the overall brand message and strategy.

Let's recap: People - set goals, strategic objectives, develop creative content, and "understand" the company, brand, context, and environment. AI: executes at scale, assesses results in real-time, optimizes actions in order to meet stated goals, and provides openness into the actions it is taking.

It sounds like a really reasonable, and pretty effective implementation of AI in a real business context.

And an optimistic one too, as the 'jobs' that Albert leaves for the people to do seem like the ones that people will want to do.