Andrew and Steve Preach AI/ML at #NZSOMO

The mammoth topic of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) was at the heart of a talk delivered by Andrew and Steve at Conferenz’s NZ Social Media Forum conference on July 23rd. Their talk aimed to give attendees a simple and clear overview of what this technology is, how it works and how it can best be utilised in digital marketing campaigns to boost performance.

The pair were excited to deliver this talk after being asked to present on the subject which is hugely utilised within This Side Up’s operations. After being early adopters of this technology and well experienced with its effectiveness and proper utilisation, there was plenty to share.

According to Andrew, one of the challenges in their talk was in simplifying and explaining the complex and technical topic to an audience which may not be familiar with statistics or heavy data processing. But by breaking it down into understandable chunks and relating it to products they are familiar with the audience was able to get a good grip on the topic. “What a lot of people don’t realise is that they are using artificial intelligence every day. Whether that be Google Maps or a Spotify playlist recommendation, AI has infused into our daily lives without us even noticing”.

The two giants of digital advertising, Google and Facebook have invested heavily in AI for how and to whom they serve advertising. As such, advertising on these two platforms and how their machine learning methods can best be utilised for greater performance were discussed in detail. Steve knows the power of leveraging this technology from results seen with This Side Up clients. “The landscape has changed over the last couple of years with advancements in machine learning performance on Google and Facebook to the extent that our ops team has embraced it within their activities and we’ve seen some pretty interesting results”.Andrew concluded the talk by highlighting the potential AI and ML have for businesses beyond just their online marketing activities. Thanks to the advancements in this area from research and the development of tools by the likes of Google, Facebook and Amazon, organisations with huge datasets and unique questions can leverage ML for specific purposes. “It takes some creative thinking and some specific technical skills, but machine learning is achievable for analysis on private data sets, whether that be better predicting the effect the weather has on your business, which social influencers are most compatible for your brand, or predicting the likelihood of a new prospect becoming a highly valuable customer.”

If you’d like to learn more about how we can help your business with AI/ML or if your organisation is interested in engaging Andrew/Steve to deliver their talk to your team, we’re open to discussing it!