AI is now creating content for brands. Can it help you cut through the clutter on social?

Trash, a new social video app by the ex-head of Vine, uses artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning “to automate the un-fun parts of video editing”. During the UEFA Champions League Final, Heineken introduced the ridiculously named Banternator on Twitter - the world’s first AI football commentator.

Brands are now frequently using AI to create content. But is it really helping them build meaningful relationships with the people that matter to them most? Or, is it lazy marketing - responsible for adding to the clutter of online content whilst putting brand reputations at risk?

Every brand wants content that cuts through

Our work at Carve focuses on helping organisations use social to build relationships with the people that matter to them most. Your customers, industry stakeholders, influencers and talent. 

To realise this ambition, we know we don’t just need to reach these audiences, we need to engage them. But that’s no easy task.

The abundance of channels and content today means that we’re all inundated with stories vying for our attention. At Carve, we estimate that people scroll through 90 metres of social feeds on their phones every day - the equivalent of using your thumb to scroll the length of the Statue of Liberty.

We talk about the attention economy. But more accurately, these days we should refer to the lack of attention economy.

How can AI help brands stand out?

One of the areas we’re exploring is how AI could help us learn what works on social, with the aim of creating content - from written articles to videos - that consistently cuts through. 

I recently read an interview with Brendan Kane, author of One Million Followers, where he discusses how AI “can observe and react to cultural events so as to create virality”.

In the near future, he suggests AI will be able to create things like memes by reacting to current events and human behaviours, intelligently piecing the two together to quickly form a viral piece of content. 

Rise of the meme machines

From popular studies, we know that people’s trust in brands and promoted content, which is the results of social activity without any investment behind it, are at an all-time low. People are more selective than ever before about what they read, watch and click. 

To combat this, brands need to be human. But can a machine tell truly human stories? Or, will we just end up with 24/7 meme machines? 

It could be influential

In the article, Brendan Kane reiterates the idea that AI can learn and experiment with millions of social story iterations, learning what works and what doesn’t. 

Done properly, I believe it could - for example - help charities who don’t have social agencies tell their stories. There could be some real power to this. 

On the downside, it could just fill our social feeds and inboxes with even more clutter. Or even worse, it could damage your brand’s reputation. Remember Microsoft’s neo-Nazi sex-bot? Sometimes, us humans aren’t the nicest people for AI to learn from on social.

How are you using AI?

We’ll be continuing our own research at Carve and posting more on this in the future.

In the meantime, if you’re working in this area commercially or academically, we’d love to hear from you about your work to date. How is your brand using AI? What’s coming up? Do you feel it will benefit your brand’s marketing efforts or make it more difficult to stand out?