Ready or not, artificial intelligence (AI) has caused a paradigm shift in how all industries work. If your company isn’t already using AI, it’s likely at least begun exploring how it can be integrated into your organization and processes.
As AI and your industry evolve, so do we. We’ve forged ahead, leading the charge, so that we can thrive in this ever-changing technological landscape for your company’s success and ours.
A core part of our culture is embracing new technology, and AI has been no exception. When ChatGPT was publicly released in November 2022, we jumped at the opportunity to explore what we could create. With an eye on ethics, we set out to creatively and responsibly determine how to derive the most value from AI tech for our clients.
To kick our plan into motion, we invited Paul Roetzer from the Marketing AI Institute to speak to our leadership team. The conversation centered on how to make AI approachable and actionable first for our agency, and in turn, for our clients. Then, we got to work.
First Up: Our Agency POV
We started by establishing JPL’s Agency Point-of-View on our use of AI. Since its publication, our AI POV has fostered valuable conversations with clients to align on guidelines, putting their confidentiality, brand safety and ethical considerations first. These conversations compelled us to create our Responsible Use Policy, which guides team members and partners when navigating real-world use scenarios.
Meet the AI Pioneers — Our AI Testing Team
The big question: Who would lead our charge? Twenty volunteers from across the agency excitedly welcomed the opportunity to become our “go-to’s.” We call them our AI Pioneers.
The team’s journey began with attending a training course: the Marketing AI Institute’s “Piloting AI for Marketers” series. From this strong educational foundation, the Pioneers were charged with exploring how AI can benefit specific areas of our work: creative, interactive, finance, UX, analytics, paid media and strategy.
Pioneers began eagerly testing and building JPL’s AI experience, and regularly collaborating in an open forum to share ideas. They evangelize our AI POV and help us uphold our Responsible Use Policy internally and externally. Through their work, we’re continuously discovering how the power of AI changes the way we think about our work. Yes, AI can automate our processes for efficiency, but it is dramatically shifting what we can create in the world.
Initial Results Are In
Today, we are seeing huge benefits. JPL’s AI Pioneers:
Define use cases where AI can enhance our work. In creative exploration, AI can augment ideation by challenging our perceptions, suggesting diverse paths or presenting alternate techniques. It can also automate repetitive tasks to save clients time (budget) and energy. We’re devoting more time to game-changing directions in strategy and creative content.
Identify and address ethical and technical issues that might arise when using AI tools for our clients. Pioneers regularly discuss issues of bias, fairness and security to ensure that client work is protected when we use AI.
Share the pros, cons and performance of AI technology with the broader team. Pioneers identify bugs and flag issues, ensuring that the AI functions as intended and is providing accurate results. They assure us that only the best AI technology is used and that anything that isn’t quite ready yet is flagged. By doing this, we’re not only protecting clients, but we’re also learning more about how AI behaves and where human oversight is imperative.
Scale our agency’s impact with regular exchange of ideas. AI Meetups provide a platform for open discussions, ethical debates and knowledge sharing. This creates an ongoing and transparent environment where Pioneers can ask questions and learn from each other. Once ready, insights are consolidated and rolled out agencywide. Everyone is inspired to learn new ways to use AI from others. This includes how people are using AI in their personal lives. AI can be used to create workday dinner menus, grocery lists and even vacation plans. We’ve seen how AI saves time and helps kick-start new ideas.
What We’ve Learned So Far
It didn’t take long to see that not everything produced in AI is a winner. We never assume AI is going to make something better. Our AI Pioneers are our proving ground, and we test, test and test again before anything advances to the broader team. Collaboration has been key to going far — as fast as possible — while staying smart about what makes the cut.
At first, it was easy to get overwhelmed with the sheer volume of AI products in the market. Learning to adopt AI into our processes isn’t about mastering this tool or that tool. AI tech will continuously change, so we prioritize thinking differently about problems and how AI can help get us to a new solution — faster. With so many options that didn’t even exist before, the doors to the future of creativity are wide open. It’s an exciting time to be in our industry.
What We’re Looking Forward To
Our AI Pioneers will be creating more content about AI in the coming months. We’ll share what we’ve learned from our approach to embracing and integrating AI technology at JPL. And we’ll cover things like:
- How we use AI
- Ethical and legal concerns
- Using AI responsibly
- What the future of AI looks like
- Best practices for using AI
- And more!
Stay tuned for more from JPL’s AI Pioneers.
AI’s undeniable impact has reshaped how industries operate. We all must learn how to embrace and adapt to this revolutionary new era. For our clients’ success and ours, we will continue pushing to stay on top of this rapidly changing environment.
