Author: admin

Telstra’s digital and loyalty chief, Jeremy Nicholas, says adopting AI to date has garnered 8-10 per cent productivity gains in the content supply chain, plus some incremental CX/EX and digital engagement improvements. But where the 30+ percentage gains will come from is tackling the “truly hard” part of AI adoption: Job change, rethinking ways of working and actually using AI to do things differently and net new growth, he says. Over at Auto & General, AI has provided several experience wins with customers and opened up previously unavailable ways of testing campaigns on the fly, along with iterative creative scale to feed the 14 channels the insurance brand is advertising through these days, says chief growth officer, Jonathan Kerr. Meanwhile, Amazon CMO Arno Lenior, has stopped worrying about AI taking his job and is leaning into what AI can do to improve marketing’s impact – but with the caveat of reverting to our uniquely human sixth sense for sniffing out an issue in consumer experiences even if the data’s not showing a blip. Beneath the noise and platitudes surrounding AI at SXSW Sydney, we look at the practical productivity implications marketing teams are finding with AI, and the cultural challenges of where to go next to get growth.

Australia’s online safety watchdog has a new target in its sights: AI companions. eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant has fired warning shots at a growing cohort of AI apps that blur the line between intimacy and manipulation. Her first round of transparency notices went to four smaller operators, Mi3 has learned, but the giants like Elon Musk’s X with whom the Commissioner has a tetchy history, can expect to receive notices in short order.

You can be on the wrong side of the emerging AI skills shortage as a marketer, or “you can actually get paid a shitload of money and be poached left, right and centre, because you understand how those two things correlate”, says ACAM co-founder, Douglas Nicol. As the pro-purpose hub looks to embed itself in the practicalities of how marketing teams build capability survive and thrive in an AI world, it’s come up with guiding principles and job descriptions of new and evolving roles to try combat the fear and anxiety surrounding skills development and new-look functional models. Cue trust-first brand and customer management, answer engine optimisation in parallel to SEO, AI productivity coaches and the pressing need for what Foxtel head of marketing operations and report contributor, Aaron Michie, calls an orchestrator who can stitch AI into legacy systems, processes and platforms.