How top advertising executives engage with AI | Business

He is not alone. Generative artificial intelligence (AI) has become a routine part of life for senior executives in the advertising industry.

The dynamic is reminiscent of the 2013 film “Her,” in which the main character, played by Joaquin Phoenix, develops a romantic relationship with a virtual assistant. In Mr. Brux’s case, there’s no romance, but the relationship with AI is equally intimate and intense. In his conversations with Sol, he discusses movie scenes, idea combinations, and adjusts proposals for the day’s meetings. “The car is almost like an incubator for ideas,” he said.

For Mr. Brux, voice interaction promotes spontaneity and fluidity, allowing him to connect ideas without workplace interruptions. “Voice reaches you in different ways. I sometimes feel like I’m in ‘Her’,” he jokes. “This feature is just the tip of the iceberg. What we will see in the coming years will transform how we work and create even more,” Mr. Brux adds.

Although somewhat more inclined towards “analog” formats, Gabriela Onofre, the CEO of Publicis Group in Brazil, has also been exploring AI, encouraged by her 16-year-old daughter. During her 40-minute commute from home to the office, Ms. Onofre ditched the radio and started using Siri, the iPhone assistant, to read WhatsApp messages and even create presentations. She dictates what she needs, and the tool organizes the information. “Many people are afraid of AI, but I see the opposite. Human creativity tends to be more valued,” she states.

Despite the advancements in AI tools as assistants in executives’ daily lives, the technology is not expected to replace humans, observes Glauco Arbix, a professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of São Paulo (USP). He refers to an unpublished study conducted by Harvard University researchers this year, exploring whether AI could replace CEOs.

The study showed that “in the short term, generative AI achieved the business objectives [defined in the research] more quickly and efficiently than the researchers [graduate and doctoral students].” However, over time, AI was “fired” much sooner than the researchers. One reason, he explains, was the machine’s lack of flexibility.

“Generative AI showed no flexibility, thus no ability to adapt to new situations. The students were slower but much more capable of adapting to new situations,” explains the professor.

Erh Ray, CEO of BETC Havas Brasil, is a photography enthusiast and uses AI to create images and animate old photos. He applies the tool, for instance, to bring family photos from Taiwan to life through the Runway ML platform. “The quality is somewhat frightening. The tool allows transforming a simple record into a story, revealing what lies behind the image.”

Renata Bokel, CEO of WMcCann, starts her day surrounded by technology. She programmed Alexa, Amazon’s virtual assistant, so that when she says “good morning,” the device provides the weather forecast, reads her schedule, and informs her of the traffic conditions on her way to the agency. It then starts playing news podcasts. “I like to start the day with information. It helps me get prepared,” she shares.

At the agency, Ms. Bokel uses ChatGPT to boost idea development and structure new projects. She asks, “Considering my experience as CEO of the largest advertising agency in Brazil, how would you approach creating a campaign for the launch of a new product?”

For Ms. Bokel, AI is an ally, but the final creative touch always comes from people. “AI can offer suggestions, but marketing depends on interactions between people. I believe that, in the future, professionals in this field will be great programmers,” she notes.

Eduardo Simon, CEO of Galeria, attends major technology events worldwide. Last year, he encountered the Plaud Note, a device as thin as a credit card capable of recording conversations in 112 languages. Integrating technologies from the Claude 3.5 assistant, by Anthropic, and GPT-4, the tool creates summaries of audio recordings, identifying attributions and next steps for each meeting participant, making it easier to track what was discussed.