Finisterre CMO: We need responsible innovation

It’s been pretty impossible to avoid the headlines about the pace and lack of regulation of AI.  “Tech Whistleblowers reveal tech could wipe out humanity”  “Open AI chief says ‘right to be afraid of AI’”.  All in, it makes for some startling and uncomfortable reading.  

Thank goodness then for the all-things Marketing bubble in which we can spend our time!  In the world of Marketing, you will see no mention of this impending risk to humanity, if anything, it’s clear that marketers have fully embraced AI. In fact, they love AI.  So much so, they seem content to let AI take our jobs, our clean water and our food, whilst actively posting about how great it is for writing a powerpoint deck on LinkedIn.

First AI came for copy, then creative… now it’s coming for all our jobs.  I had an email last week pitching me, “The marketing team of the future, run entirely by agentic AI.”  Not only does that work culture sound unbelievably bleak, I happen to know that my brand is worn by lots of lovely people who work in marketing and the creative industries.  What will happen to my brand if none of those people have jobs any more?  

When pressed on what they think will happen if/when AI takes over 50% of white collar jobs, the AI bosses have suggested, with straight faces, that a universal basic income might be appropriate. The Lords of Capitalism, suddenly champions of the welfare state? Am I dreaming?  Will UBI even pay enough to allow more premium brands to survive?  And what taxation policy will fund the UBI to begin with? 90% tax on the few workers whose jobs are protected? Or corporation tax that we know will simply be evaded, or costs passed onto the consumers? (Don’t believe me?  Just look at the success of the Digital Services Tax that the UK government brought in... Google and other tech giants just pass these costs back onto the customers.)

Now, I'm not completely against AI.  I use Claude pretty much daily to help sort through my thinking, organise presentations, and find files I long thought lost.  Granola is a great partner for taking notes and actions in meetings.  The ad platforms we use daily are powered by AI and can drive positive results. Equally, I’m encouraging my team to ensure that they are skilled up and knowledgeable so they have the skills and experiences to remain employed/competitive over the coming months/years.

Likewise, I do not necessarily believe that AI will lead to the extinction of humanity as we know it.  I survived Y2K, and the dotcom boom, i’ve seen different technologies come and go, (wearables, are you still out there?), so I know humans love nothing more than to predict our own demise… but I do believe that we are charging into something that is far larger than anything we have faced before, and which increasingly, is facing a backlash from the very customers we serve.  

Data Centres have become the lightning rod that could very well topple governments and decide elections, local, regional and higher, as our customers start to see the real life implications of their use of ChatGPT.  We are also seeing a rise in rejection of the AI customer service agents who promised faster answers, of AI models used in place of real people, and of a deepening sense of distrust towards brands in general…  not to mention, the copyright shitshow that is the use of AI to come up with “original” creative.  

For years, brand managers and marketers have been writing “AUTHENTICITY” on their strategy decks, espousing the benefit of “showing up authentically” across multiple channels, of “building real relationships” with their customers, of rejecting the perfection that the early days of instagram proliferated… and yet, these same marketers are now using AI to replace their teams and create the creative to reach these folk, without acknowledging the hypocrisy.  What happens if customer sentiment shifts so negatively against AI that all the hard yards and tech stacks marketers have built have suddenly become the very thing that will be their undoing?

Humans want connection - real, human connection.  That has not changed.  We also want clean water, clean air, and energy bills that we can actually afford.  The pace at which the marketing industry is integrating AI into itself needs to be addressed.  The UK has just come out of the hottest summer on record, and the supermarket bosses, (and government), are talking about food shortages and stockpiling. Climate change is here and it is impacting our supply chains, our cost of living… and our customers.

Marketers love to blame CEOs and CFOs for not thinking long term, for not understanding the value of brand building over time and yet, here we are, charging head first into a technology that could very well destroy the capitalist system on which all our jobs depend.  Maybe that’s a good thing? Maybe I missed the brief where we all collectively decided that socialism is the way forward? But even a more communal economy won’t work if the water is dirty and the air too hot.

So let’s pause, let’s think back to what drew us to this industry in the first place.  Maybe it was just a steady income, but it was probably also creativity, complexity, and hopefully connection. There are places where AI can help all of us do our jobs better, but this shouldn’t come at the expense of it doing our jobs full stop. Responsible AI usage is a thing, an ever-shifting beast but it’s a mantra that we should all adapt.  If not, I'll see you all in our commune soon, Comrade.  I’ll bring the gas mask.