The rapid adoption of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) in research presents both opportunities and ethical challenges that should be carefully navigated. Although GenAI tools can enhance research efficiency through automation of tasks such as literature review and data analysis, their use raises concerns about aspects such as data accuracy, privacy, bias, and research integrity. This paper develops the ETHICAL framework, which is a practical guide for responsible GenAI use in research. Employing a constructivist case study examining multiple GenAI tools in real research contexts, the framework consists of seven key principles: 'Examine policies and guidelines', 'Think about social impacts', 'Harness understanding of the technology', 'Indicate use', 'Critically engage with outputs', 'Access secure versions', and'Look at user agreements'. Applying these principles will enable researchers to uphold research integrity while leveraging GenAI's benefits. The framework addresses a critical gap between awareness of ethical issues and practical action steps, providing researchers with concrete guidance for ethical GenAI integration. This work has implications for research practice, institutional policy development, and the broader academic community while adapting to an AI-enhanced research landscape. The ETHICAL framework can serve as a foundation for developing AI literacy in academic settings and promoting responsible innovation in research methodologies.

One of the great challenges we have seen businesses face in recent years is how they approach data and analytics (and now artificial intelligence) when their industries are undergoing major transformation. It's hard enough to create a data-driven culture, compete on analytics, develop data-driven products and services, and so forth under normal business conditions, as we noted in our March column about the newest NewVantage Partners survey on big data and AI. But doing it while your business and industry are transforming -- the old line of changing out a jet engine while the plane is flying through turbulence at 35,000 feet -- is really tough. It's so difficult, in fact, that we always have our doubts when executives claim to have done it successfully. We are much more trusting when we're told that the organization is simply making progress toward the goal.

Artificial intelligence is bringing profound transformation across the media and communications industry. It already forms a huge part of how content is delivered, as algorithms work to understand our behaviours and preferences. These insights are hugely valuable in understanding consumers and making communications more effective but can also pose their own challenges. "The digital advertising market is worth about $350 billion a year and growing," says Perry Nightingale, head of creative AI at creative transformation company WPP. "And we already see a lot of AI, particularly on the targeting side. Algorithms are constantly working around us to recommend the next piece of content to consume. But because of the way those algorithms work, we have to make a huge amount of content before they become effective. We need hundreds and hundreds of variations of an advert before it becomes worthwhile to split them up and show to different people, which all need to be created in the same amount of time and for the same cost."

This month, advertising giant WPP will send unusual corporate training videos to tens of thousands of employees worldwide. A presenter will speak in the recipient's language and address them by name, while explaining some basic concepts in artificial intelligence. The videos themselves will be powerful demonstrations of what AI can do: The face, and the words it speaks, will be synthesized by software. WPP doesn't bill them as such, but its synthetic training videos might be called deepfakes, a loose term applied to images or videos generated using AI that look real. Although best known as tools of harassment, porn, or duplicity, image-generating AI is now being used by major corporations for such anodyne purposes as corporate training.

Last month, WPP, the holding company for multiple agencies and networks including Oglivy, GroupM and Kantar, released its annual results for 2019. The company put forth a number of objectives across various business units, but one line especially caught our eye: "In the next two years, we plan to train 50,000 people to be able to articulate the power of artificial intelligence and its value to clients, and to accredit 5,000 data scientists, engineers and creative technologists in the key marketing technologies." Training a full staff on AI is no easy task, but to undertake an initiative to train 50,000 people is something that takes enormous coordination. "Our AI skills development program is very exciting and spans executive education," said WPP's CTO Stephan Pretorius. To make its AI training goals a reality, WPP is currently developing a graduate diploma with Oxford Saïd Business School and rolling out a data science academy created in partnership with General Assembly.

Just watching was a feat of endurance. The 2019 men's final at Wimbledon lasted four hours and 57 minutes, making it the longest on record at the All England Club. Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic seemed to be perfectly matched, until they weren't. In the end, Djokovic prevailed, and fans were left to debate what allowed the Serbian great to finally notch the win. They would probably be surprised to learn that some of Djokovic's advantage could have come from artificial intelligence, which he incorporated in his game for the first time during this year's Wimbledon.

A pet owner was stunned after her parrot managed to shop online using Amazon's Alexa voice recognition software. Corienne Pretorius, 39, was baffled after a £10 order for gift boxes, which she had not ordered, arrived at her house. The mother-of-one questioned her husband Jan, 45, a civil engineer, and son Jaden, eight, but quickly realised the culprit was Buddy - their African Grey parrot. Ms Pretorius, from Greenwich, south east London, says the cheeky bird mimics her voice, and must have activated her smart Amazon Echo device to place the strange order. Pet owner Corienne Pretorius, of Greenwich, south-east London, was stunned after her parrot (pictured) managed to shop online using Amazon's Alexa voice recognition software She said: 'I couldn't believe it when I realised that it was Buddy who had used Alexa to make an Amazon order.

At the Adobe Summit this week in Las Vegas, Adobe unveiled the latest suite of updates for Sensei, the company's platform for artificial intelligence that competes with IBM's Watson and Salesforce's Einstein. The updates, which include an expanded partnership with Microsoft to pull the Microsoft's CRM data into Adobe's cloud, could help marketers improve spending across advertising platforms. They also come on the heels of competitors like Salesforce integrating with IBM on the same front, potentially furthering the AI arms race as machine learning becomes more understood and accepted. But Adobe's AI play is part of a broader plan to offer a more holistic suite of services through what it's calling the Experience Cloud. "With Sensei, we want to bring a lot of the machine learning we're doing in different parts of marketing under one umbrella," Anil Kamath, an Adobe fellow and vp of technology, told Adweek.