The advertising industry is only just beginning to glimpse the impact of artificial intelligence (AI), according to Kate Scott-Dawkins, global director, business intelligence of GroupM. The Next 10: Artificial Intelligence, a report written by Scott-Hawkins and other contributors across GroupM, forecasts the size of AI in advertising and reports on the technologies and behaviours that will shape advertising over the next decade. GroupM estimates AI will reach more than $US370 billion this year, or roughly 45%of all advertising, and is likely to inform the vast majority of media by 2032, reaching $US1.3 trillion, or more than 90% of total ad revenue. Scott-Dawkins" "While an exercise of this kind is speculative by nature, this report is rooted in the insights of the GroupM analysts, strategists and technologists who necessarily incorporate a long-term view when shaping the next era of media where advertising works better for people. "It produces estimates around the size of AI-enabled ad revenue globally through the lens of how media channels are likely to evolve over the next decade due to the growth in application of AI, along with emerging technologies like edge computing and augmented reality. "For the purposes of this paper, we define AI-enabled advertising as any artificial intelligence used in the process of advertising, from insight generation to activation and optimisation.

Broadcaster SCA has invested in Australian artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning company SourseAI, which will provide content recommendations on the LiSTNR app to continue to improve the user experience. SourseAI is a patented augmented intelligence platform that will be used by SCA to discover audience behavioural insights, listener mood states and how to power dynamic cohorts of LiSTNR users, ultimately enabling a hyper-personalised experience. SCA's total investment ahsn't been revealed but SourseAI says a $1.5 million capital raise was led by Aligned Equity. SCA is described as an an early investor. SourseAI ingests data from SCA's systems and applies a machine learning algorithm designed to power content recommendations to users.

Artificial intelligence shouldn't be an afterthought for marketers, says new martech vendor Acoustic. Formerly known as IBM Watson Marketing, Acoustic was sold off by tech giants IBM earlier this year and rebranded with a sole focus on marketers. The independent marketing cloud company has since rebuilt a cloud that it says has a "modern architecture" and brings "humanity" to AI-powered marketing. Jay Henderson, senior vice president of product management at Acoustic, says at the moment a lot of the company's competitors aren't enabling marketers to use AI easily. "I think marketers, generally at the moment, have a little bit of fatigue around the way we've all talked about AI," Henderson says.

To quote Eoin Treacy in'How to Profit from the Peaceful Rise of the Robots': "Don't think of robots as replacements for humans - think of them as things that will help make us better at tackling many of the problems we face." Never has this been more appropriate than now in the digital media industry. The three key problems that machines can fix are costs, monetisation and ad quality. As programmatic advertising evolves at a rapid rate, the need to deploy smart technology to continue to add value has increased. In August, the New York chapter of the IAB launched a working group to help the industry navigate the impact that artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) will have on digital advertising.

From location beacons to artificial intelligence here is a comprehensive guide to what I predict will be the biggest marketing trends for the New Year. Pokémon Go brought augmented reality to the forefront for many marketers and we expect advertisers outside of the gaming realm to dive deep into this space in 2017. AR and VR technologies remain largely uncharted territory with literally endless creative possibilities. With this technology, the viewer becomes an integral part of the brand experience as opposed to a mere observer. Instead of a call to action, they are the action.

Advances in artificial intelligence (AI) are grabbing headlines more frequently than ever. The most recent leap to make global headlines was Facebook's announcement of'automatic alternative text', where they are using AI to help blind people'see' Facebook. This is possible because of Facebook's object recognition technology, which is based on a neural network that has billions of parameters and is trained with millions of examples. Other artificial intelligence, designed to benefit humanity by surpassing our abilities in highly complex tasks – such as diagnosing illness, researching pharmaceuticals, managing power grids and protecting against cyber threats – could rely for its success on deep learning and the unpredictability that seems to be a necessary part of it. These breakthroughs in computer technology are rightfully earning the curiosity of marketers who are keen to understand how AI will revolutionise the way media is planned, bought and optimised to enhance the customer experience.

Society is on the brink of the second industrial revolution according to Wired co-founder Kevin Kelly who says the formula for tomorrow's startups is simple; add artificial intelligence (AI). Kelly was speaking as part of a keynote at the Cannes Lions on the "inevitable" 12 technological forces that will shape the world. One of the key changes that Kelly sees on the horizon is AI, which he says is "launching the second industrial revolution". The first revolution, he says, came about because of the invention of "artificial power" which could be added to manual processes to make them easier. Using an example of a water pump moving from a manual process to an electric pump, Kelly says the formula for the industrial revolution was "take X, add electricity, and you have something new that can do something we couldn't imagine before".

Havas Group has formed an agreement with IBM to form a new practice that will focus on the use of artificial intelligence systems in marketing. The practice will collaborate with clients to identify ways in which IBM's Watson AI technology can be applied to their marketing efforts, followed by software development and campaign execution. During the pilot phase, the practice developed a marketing program for TD Ameritrade which monitored social media sites in order to analyze the sentiments of professional football fans nationally in the United States. The company used the data to select a "most confident fan" to feature in its brand engagement initiatives. According to the agency, this was the first ever program of its type.

McCann Erickson Japan is taking artificial intelligence to the next level, creating and appointing the world's first robot creative director. The robot, called AI-CD?, will be assigned as a creative director to client accounts and will provide creative direction for commercials. It will also evaluate and gain learnings from results after commercials have aired to ensure it improves for future projects. AI-CD? was developed through a new taskforce in the agency, McCann Millennials, a group of staff members born between 1980 and 2000 who apparently care not for the future of their own careers, or the possible rising of the machines à la The Matrix. The robot is able to give creative direction for commercials, drawing from a database of tagged and analysed TV commercials from the past 10 years of winners of the All Japan Radio & Television Commercial Confederation's annual CM Festival (ACC CM Festival).

Now in its 30th year South by Southwest is synonymous with creativity and innovation for advertisers and marketers from around the world and this year has seen the program significantly expand with hundreds of new sessions catering to a record breaking 72,000 delegates across its interactive, music and film festivals. So beyond dizzying crowds, and the ever-present fear of missing out on the next big thing, what are some of the key trends to have emerged from the annual techie talkfest and what are the things which were hot in previous years but have now have lost their cool after going mainstream? Walking around Austin, VR is everywhere. Demand by festival goers to get their hands on the latest 360 experience has left people queuing day and night for their chance to play. Samsung, realising the round the clock queues their 5D sensory experience would attract, took things a step further with a tweet containing #VRonDemand summoning one of Austin's iconic hipster peddled pedicabs to your location wherever you were, taking the experience out of the showroom and into the streets. However, there was no sign of Microsoft's augmented reality visor the Hololens this year.