Zenith Global held its first AI Day in November, marking a significant milestone in the company’s journey towards embracing and integrating artificial intelligence into its operations. Held at Zenith’s headquarters in London, the event was a vibrant mix of presentations, workshops, and interactive sessions, designed to deepen understanding and harness the potential of AI technologies.
The morning featured insightful presentations, including media partner guests like Google, that helped attendees dive into the multifaceted world of AI, discussing its myriad applications, ethical considerations, and envisioning its future trajectory. The afternoon was a hands-on workshop where teams brainstormed innovative ways AI could power each stage of Zenith’s strategic planning framework, the ROI Experience Platform.
Ricky Chopra, Global Digital Business Director and head of Zenith’s AI Taskforce, said: “We are thrilled to explore the vast potential of AI. Our dedicated AI taskforce is already investigating ways to integrate cutting-edge AI solutions into our daily operations, aiming to enhance efficiency, accuracy, and innovation in our industry. This marks a significant step in our journey towards a more data-driven and intelligent media landscape.”
Four key takeaways
1. Subject matter experts
Our clients rely on us to be at the decision-making experts. Whether solutions are generated by humans or AI, the responsibility for the outcomes rests with us. This paradigm shift in accountability highlights the evolving role of AI in business decision-making processes.
2. AI is best used as support
A standout analogy compared generative AI to a team of interns. This perspective vividly illustrates how AI can assist in daily tasks, but emphasizes the need for diligent oversight, quality checks, and constructive feedback, ensuring that AI tools learn and evolve effectively.
3. It’s quality, not quantity
The cornerstone of effective AI utilization is the art of crafting quality prompts. During a Prompt Workshop, participants learned how to refine their questioning techniques, highlighting how the calibre of input significantly influences AI-generated outcomes.
4. Stronger together
A handful of the 20 ideas presented during the workshops are currently being developed further to be hard-wired into our planning process and scaled across our global planning community. This demonstrates our team members are our most valuable assets when it comes to innovation that helps deliver client ROI.
Three focus areas for 2024
Zenith’s AI Day was more than just an event; it was a commitment to the future where we unveiled our strategic focus areas for 2024 at AI Day. These ‘big bets’ represent our commitment to leveraging AI in transformative ways, ensuring that we stay ahead of the game in a rapidly evolving digital landscape.
1. Enhanced audience insights
By harnessing vast amounts of data from social media giants, we aim to deploy AI algorithms to uncover trends, cohorts, affinities, and patterns that might elude human analysis.
2. AI-assisted media planning
Since the introduction of ChatGPT in 2022, Zenith has been at the forefront of integrating AI into its media planning processes. Our goal is to seamlessly integrate AI into our platforms.
3. Data-driven business transformation
By enabling natural language querying, users can then delve deeper, asking questions to generate comprehensive observations, insights, and recommendations.
These focus areas underscore Zenith dedication to not just adopting AI, but fully integrating it into the core of our business operations. By placing these ‘big bets’ in 2024, we are positioning ourselves to lead in an AI-driven future, delivering unparalleled value to our clients and stakeholders.
Benoit Cacheux, Global Chief Digital Officer at Zenith, said: “Armed with PublicisGPT, which leverages the most powerful AI models from OpenAI and other partners, Zenith is in a leading position to shape how Gen AI will create new applications for our future media landscape.”
Written by Ricky Chopra, Global Business Director and Head of Zenith’s AI Taskforce.
