In this episode of the Paid Media Playbook, Double Z Media dives into the controversial yet fascinating world of AI in paid media. Join our hosts as they discuss their love-hate relationship with AI, exploring the reasons behind the hype and the skepticism surrounding it. Whether you're a content creator eager to leverage AI or someone concerned about its implications, this episode offers a balanced perspective. Discover the potential and pitfalls of AI in content creation, and understand why some people are embracing it while others are approaching with caution.
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Chapters:

Introduction and Overview of AI in Paid Media (0:00 - 5:00): Our hosts introduce the topic, providing a brief overview of AI's role in paid media and why it's a hot topic in the industry.

AI in Content Creation (5:00 - 10:00): Learn about how AI is being used in content creation, the benefits it brings to the table, and the areas where it still falls short.

The Love-Hate Relationship with AI (10:00 - 12:00): Explore the dual perspectives of AI in media, from its impressive capabilities to the frustrations and limitations experienced by marketers.

Hype vs. Reality (11:00 - 13:00): A critical look at how AI is sometimes blown out of proportion, with discussions on what AI can actually achieve versus the exaggerated claims.

Links and Resources:

• Subscribe to our newsletter here
• Lisa Wekellis on LinkedIn
• Laura Szczes on LinkedIn
• Double Z Media Website
• Double Z Media on LinkedIn

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Transcription:

Well, if there's one conversation I cannot escape, it is the rise of AI in paid media.

Oh, oh, my Lord, I agree. I matter of fact, just saw a speaker at MCI, this marketing group I belong to. And he, it was Josh Dunn. He is the founder and CEO of Premier Media Group. And they're, they do a bunch of local publications. And they do sponsored content, they do all sorts of things, but they have banned any use of AI in any of their content creation, which I think. Personally, I think that makes a lot of sense from a local perspective, because if you're going to like Northwest, I think it's called travel in life is one of their new like publications. And you know, if you're going to talk about, you know, a trip to Banff or something, right, then you're going to want that play by play.

Yeah, it, it really lacks authenticity and sincerity. I just think it's so fascinating. Every conversation that we've had about AI, it's always about content creation, and that's all anyone wants to talk about, which is such a, I mean, that's the new, the new sexy thing that AI is doing, but it has so many more capabilities than that.

And It just feels like it's limiting people's understanding and utilization of it as a tool instead of a crutch.

I agree that the content creation is the, is the sticking point and I don't know if I shared this with you, I heard this story, I think it was on NPR, but it was just like, the woman had spent years researching a book. Right. And writing her book and it comes out and she goes to Amazon to see her book the day after it, you know, went live and she looked and there were two books that were summaries of her book already. Out the day after she released it and, , she was just like, what it took me years to research this.

How could somebody, but it was just completely AI summaries that someone was selling and it was like a fake name and they had done a bunch of this and they just do it and it's, and so that's why I think it's, it's because that's the sticky point is the, this is the 1 thing that, Isn't helpful, you know, plagiarizing people's work, plagiarizing people's faces and voices and that sort of thing is, that's, that's why everyone's freaking out about that everything else.

It's helpful. And but you're right. We're not talking about it as much because it is a tool. It is a wonderful tool. If you're, if you're looking for a way of organizing your information, right? Okay. Or looking for machine learning with our digital media, right? Like, so we can optimize easier because it's, it's smarter than we are.

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Yeah, and it's really good at ingesting data and spitting out answers. But even the talks that we go to that are evangelizing AI, saying everyone who doesn't use AI is going to lose their job and all that stuff, like how many times have we heard that exact line?

it because the people who didn't embrace it are all out of business now.

but like even those people are only bringing up the content creation side of it.

No, it is true. What are you thinking of in particular?

Like as far as examples of, I'm just thinking back to the Digimarcon event that we went to

Oh yeah.

And there were several speakers who were just all about why AI is the greatest. Everyone should fire all of their creative teams and just use AI.

Oh, right. And just get the con it doesn't matter if it's shitty or not. Just get it out there. There was, that was one of the lessons, right?

But that wasn't, that wasn't related to AI, although I think that's why we're seeing so much of this, because it's true, when you're looking at organic content, volume is so much more important than quality. At least as far as the algorithms go, you know, are, is Meta going to promote, not promote, because that's a paid word, but are they going to push your post to more people?

Well, I don't know. Have you posted twice a day for the last three weeks? If so, they'll probably value you more. And so, they're just really,

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But I also feel like they are getting, and we did learn this at that conference. I think that they are getting savvy enough, meaning the algorithms to see if it's if you're regurgitating stuff, if you're if and same with like photographs, right? You're posting a photograph and embedded in those photographs is a location of when it was taken in that sort of thing.

And so it can tell you, is this what it says it is, is it.

yeah, no, I agree. I agree. I think it's, we're going to go back and forth and back and forth with, between like, these, programs that schools use, for example, to see what, you know, that they're really advanced to see. If people are plagiarizing and that sort of thing, right? Like, we're going to go back and forth with those kind of smart, smart, programs , and then AI is going to be smarter than those programs and then, because it's going to have to write those programs. And then you know, it's like kind of a battle, probably like a race to the bottom. But yeah.

some really incredible tools for getting content with AI that isn't predatory, right? For example, I, we use Descript for our podcast editing very cool tool. It uses AI to transcribe the podcast and it can also recommend clips for us to post on social media. That's AI. It's looking through our content and saying, Hey, this is a 30 second clip.

That's probably an interesting thing to share with people. So it's not generating something new. It's analyzing what we've given it. And I think that is really where AI shines and people can use and you know, still save time and still save effort, creating social media posts,

Right. Right. It's, it's like I said, yeah, I completely agree with you. It can, it can analyze and summarize. And kind of daunting, sometimes daunting tasks that are just way too. I mean, they, it's just a time saver. Yeah. Huge time saver. And, and because it's a little smarter than us, it is going to find things that are like, these topics are the most trending topics.

So let's focus on these, pulling those clips out of your, you know, your social

But instead of, you know, sitting there and scrolling through your finished podcast for hours trying to find the sections that sound like it'll come up with five clips in 20 seconds. And so I think there are ways like that to use AI that isn't harmful, right? It's not taking someone's job. It's not firing someone.

It's not creating our podcast script for us. That would be awful. Oh, we should do a whole podcast just with a script made by chat GPT.

2my god, that would be funny. We should do that. I mean We should absolutely do that. We should submit all of our e scripts and say so that it has our quote voice and see if yeah, what it comes up with. That is funny.

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and it's just so like, it makes stuff up. I mean, I'm sure everyone has been sort of struggling with Google's new thing where it gives you the, the AI answer at the top

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I mean, Yeah, I mean, that said, a lot of times I was thinking about this too, is, you know, because it is, people are saying, oh, that's taken away from any other source because you're, you know, dealing with Google's at the beginning. Like, what's the definition of this? I mean, usually you would think it's Google.

So they would give you the most relevant example. But that isn't always the case. It's just, which is a, whichever is getting the most popular, like.

It's not great at evaluating its sources, I think is what I've noticed, and it will, it'll pull in information, and it shows you where it gets the information from, which, that's useful, but those are usually just, could have just been the top search results anyway, I still have to click on a link and read the real article, but it will combine information in a way that just becomes nonsense, and, I don't know, it, it's that idea of like, trying to use it to circumvent it.

human input instead of using it to, you know, enhance or streamline where it's really showing its weaknesses.

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Well, it's able to consider so many more factors than a person can just because of its computational power. And so when you give it hard data and strict guidelines, it can do some really amazing things.

We, we love, we hate it, but we love it, you know, AI

It's really good at what it does well,

Yeah, that's a good

but it sometimes it feels like people are trying to push a square peg in a round hole and then catastrophize about people trying to fit this square peg into a round hole, and it's

Right. And like, have a 60 minutes and a 20, 20 and , every podcast and every news story has AI in it now because it's scary.

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