The Future Is Here with AI. Are You Ready for It?

PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER, 2023

With the Age of AI upon us, one can find no shortage of Terminator-inspired memes on social-media platforms these days. Meh: I’m not convinced that machines will be rounding all of us up for slave camps or targeting the strays for termination any time soon. 

That’s not to say I’d be sleeping like a baby if I were a chief executive. A few days ago, I stumbled across a video of a fellow who was demonstrating the ability of an AI application to sync his lip movement as it translated his speech, in real time, from English into French and German. The execution was flawless. 

Tech advances, especially since the dawn of the Internet, have always been fraught with the risk that some rat fink low-life out there might attempt to wring a few bucks out of companies that aren’t paying attention. We’ve come a long way since the first Nigerian prince emails, with the tech evolving to produce authentic-looking in-house emails purportedly from CEOs, issuing urgent directives to their finance departments to disperse immediate payments to phantom vendors.

The powerful combination of speech and video, though, is truly frightening. AI might help with customer contacts, streamlining processes, or extracting deep insights from tranches of data. It also might create opportunities to hijack the image of a corporate executive and have him or her spout all manner of brand-damaging statements. 

You think this year’s damage to Bud Light and Target was a marker of where were brand risk is these days? You ain’t seen nothing yet. In each of those cases, stupidity, carelessness, detachment from your consumer base and a laissez-faire attitude from the C-suite were, in effect, one-offs. With AI, we’re talking structural risk on a global scale.

Brian Yamada, chief innovation officer for VMLY&R, the region’s biggest digital branding/ad agency, gets to ponder some of those risks, and the rewards, for clients every day.

“These conversations are happening in boardrooms right now: How do we get our arms around AI and where do we apply it?” he says. “We’re seeing lots of different applications across the spectrum.”

That includes the dark end of the spectrum.

“The threats are many,” Yamada says. “It’s a complex area. So, number one, keep your lawyers close. The landscape is shifting so quickly, I jokingly say that I’m drinking from the AI firehose and trying not to drown. It’s my job to try to keep up with this.”

Ponder that for a second: The chief innovation officer for a global marketing agency is challenged every day to keep up with developments in AI. Given that, what hope do C-suite executives in mid-size companies—let alone small-business owners—have to fully comprehend the risks, even as they’re exploring ways to harness the positives?

For now, it’s a good idea to understand that the Wild West developments we’ve seen in AI this past year will be answering to a new sheriff in town once lawmakers get involved. But when?

“Legislation is started in the EU, and conversations have started here in the states,” Yamada says.  “But I do not know how legislators and their staff can understand all the issues that are being raised around data privacy and security and the need to manage AI in a responsible way. It’s a huge challenge, and in the interim, there will be battles in the courtroom that will decide where the initial lines get drawn.”

The bottom line for executives, he said, is that there’s a new need to evaluate your organizational structures and begin training or hiring of those who are comfortable living a world of constant change and innovation. And shell out for redundant systems and personnel.

“Businesses have got to get up to speed in with the implications here,” Yamada says. “We think it’s important for clients to have their own responsible AI frameworks and approaches. You have to make sure that any AI initiatives are transparent and explainable— especially the that are AI-forward or visible where customers are interacting with AI.

“How to cover your blind spots,” he says, “is always an important aspect of business.”

So take to heart the guidance that time traveler Kyle Reece offered to young Sarah Connor in that original Terminator flick. Just like Cyberdyne Systems Model 101, folks, AI is out there: “It can’t be bargained with. It can’t be reasoned with. It doesn’t feel pity or remorse or fear. And it absolutely will not stop … ever.”

Sleep well tonight, C-Suiters …