After many years of deliberating about the potential negative consequences of industrial automation for blue-collar workers, it is now clear that robots will also be coming for professionals. This may not be possible immediately. It seems certain that automation will allow organizations to automate many of the processes and tasks currently performed by humans in the coming years. The latest version of OpenAI's ChatGPT is causing a lot of concern. Its remarkable language generation abilities have sparked a legit AI arms race between tech giants such as Meta, Google, Apple, and Meta.

From the 1970s through today, there have been three waves of technology innovation in the Silicon Valley that have spawned many industries, including ours (online marketing). First, there were semiconductors, then personal computers, and most recently, the internet. Now we're on the cusp of the next wave of innovation, driven by advances in artificial intelligence (AI). Given that our industry exists thanks to these waves of innovation and that automation -- a top trend in PPC for 2017 -- can be driven by AI, how might things change for us during this next wave? And what risks do we face when we start to use far more automation without knowing the extent of its abilities?

From the 1970s through today, there have been three waves of technology innovation in the Silicon Valley that have spawned many industries, including ours (online marketing). First, there were semiconductors, then personal computers, and most recently, the internet. Now we're on the cusp of the next wave of innovation, driven by advances in artificial intelligence (AI). Given that our industry exists thanks to these waves of innovation and that automation -- a top trend in PPC for 2017 -- can be driven by AI, how might things change for us during this next wave? And what risks do we face when we start to use far more automation without knowing the extent of its abilities?