An AI Shares My Office

The Netflix-produced hit was the result of an algorithm coupled with Netflix's large collection of data on what viewers like to watch. Taking that as inspiration, ad agency McCann Erickson recently added the world's first artificial intelligence (AI)-based creative director to its team in Japan. The memorably named AI-CD β will use data on award-winning commercials to produce ideas for new campaigns. The company isn't the first to let the math do the thinking: In 2014, Hong Kong–based venture capital firm Deep Knowledge Ventures announced a new addition to its board of directors, VITAL, which uses data to vote on potential investments. More recently, Finnish tech company Tieto welcomed Alicia T., an AI complete with a conversational interface, to the board (a win for board diversity?) of its new data-driven business services unit. This doesn't mean AI-based technology will become your overlords or replacements.