IBM's Jonathan Adashek "Disagrees Completely" That AI's Key Strength is Personalisation

Whilst AI can feel very futuristic, its roots are more historical than you might expect. IBM’s research into artificial intelligence goes back to the 1950s, and Jonathan Adashek, senior vice president, marketing and communications, sees this latest wave of innovation as a transformative moment in time.

“Generative AI has really proven to be a game changer – it's like the Netscape moment, where people really embraced the internet,” he tells LBB.

One of the biggest and most celebrated uses of AI in marketing is its ability to personalise content, but Jonathan says he “disagrees completely” with the idea that is what the technology should be used for.

“Content with AI needs to be personalised, and it must be relevant – because if it's not relevant, people don't pay attention to it.

“We've all gotten that personalised letter in the mail that makes you wonder why you got it. You have no desire to go on this vacation, to adopt a penguin, or do whatever it says to. We get rid of it. It's not relevant. So, we've got to make sure that we're delivering personalised and relevant content to people."

Creativity is increasingly influenced by AI, but Jonathan says “AI's role in creativity is huge,” and the tech is “not replacing creativity, but enhancing it.”

In fact, he points to IBM's campaign for The Masters in 2023 as an example of leveraging the tech to make the most of a creative idea.

“When Firefly first came out, I went to Adobe and asked, 'Can we use this to create an ad for The Masters, even though it's in beta?’ They had just introduced it at their Summit. They said, 'Okay', and in a matter of minutes, we had 2,000 selects. What we chose for a digital ad had 26 times the engagement. It was our highest performing digital ad of the year, and it was created with Firefly AI.”

This, he says, is the true potential of AI for creatives. “They can be more creative. They can actually be practitioners of what they're experts in.”

For brands embracing the trend of returning to craft (think +61’s dominos or stop-motion puppets, or Leo Australia’s Bundy Bear), Jonathan argues AI still has a role to play. “It’s going to augment what people are doing, it’s going to enable people to be more creative -- it's not going to replace people.”

Instead, he says the real risk lies in avoiding AI altogether. “Where people are going to get replaced is when they're not using AI, and their neighbour in the office is using it. They're going to lose out to the person who can be more effective, more efficient, more creative because they've got that set of tools that are helping them.”

Beyond content creation, AI presents an opportunity to refine business strategies. “There’s a huge, huge opportunity in using AI to make our journey more effective, more seamless, and more engaging for people along the way – whether you’re the person doing the work or you're creating content to provide to your clients.”

And if you can be more creative, faster, and more efficient? Well, that’s just good for business.

“People have to look past the creative and the content, and look at how it can impact the rest of your business in the marketing space. Say you’ve got $100, how do you spend $100 in a way that is going to bring me the most return? That is where people have to start looking now."

Jonathan dismisses the idea that hesitancy to adopt AI is due to fatigue in the topic as a whole. “I think the bigger thing is that people are hesitant to use it because they're not sure how to get started. It's not that they're resistant, they're trying to figure out how to begin, how do I do something meaningful here?”

IBM was founded in 1911, and ethics have “been at the foundation of our company since the very beginning,” Jonathan says.

“We're a 113-year-old company, and when you have that age, you develop some principles that go with it that make you who you are. We've not strayed away from those, and that has helped us.

“Trust was the foundation on which IBM was built from the beginning, so we've had an AI ethics board for many, many years that looks at the applications of AI. We've got a governance which helps manage the various confluence of models, making sure that we're meeting regulations properly."