A New Age at the World Summit of Innovation
Personalization is one of the biggest trends in the digital world today. It’s visible everywhere. Long gone are the days when a site or app looks the same for different individuals. Ads are tailored based on browsing behavior, interests, and shopping history, social feeds are curated based on interaction and content consumed, and every touchpoint is fine-tuned to be as relevant and personalized as possible. While this trend provides incredible value overall, it has also created the “echo chamber” effect, where opinions are reinforced over and over again because contrasting information is filtered out. In order to broaden our view of the world, it’s necessary to challenge ourselves to step outside of our comfortable routines and look beyond what an algorithm thinks we need to know.
Recently iProspect applied this challenge outside of the digital space through our participation in the World Summit of Innovation (WSIE). The WSIE brings together world leaders in areas of government, business and infrastructure to explore a future rooted in diversity, intellect, compassion, and productivity, a future that blends person and machine to transform design, services, healthcare, industrials and cities. The 11th Edition, “Human x Machine: Business In The Age of Intelligence,” focused on visions and solutions that effectively combine humans and machines to enrich lives and improve the state of business and places.
iProspect has long held a strong presence in the digital marketing community — speaking at conferences, authoring thought leadership, and working with partners like Google, Microsoft, and Amazon to drive positive change — but we wanted to challenge and evolve our assumptions by connecting with a wider audience, and the WSIE was a perfect opportunity to do so.
Ruth Stubbs, iProspect Global President, joined the closing town hall entitled “THE [X] IN MAN X MACHINE = INNOVATING FROM 0 TO 1.” The panel of 12 global leaders, including a former CIA operative and the Head of Digital from GE Power, discussed tomorrow’s intelligent disruptions and what it really means to go from 0 to 1. They debated topics including venture financing, security, cities, industrial ubiquity, immersive education, extremism, travel, infrastructure and diversity. Addressing the importance of focusing on the digital divide, Ruth remarked, “We have to ask if we are using digital technology to deliver prosperity to everyone or just a few.”
On the following day, I took the stage to interview two individuals who are at the forefront of Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence. We intentionally invited panelists who sit outside our day-to-day relationships with Google and Microsoft, individuals who aren’t just focused on digital marketing but are instead using AI and Machine Learning to create the future of human interaction with machines. My goal was to, first, allow them to share their stories, and then to respectfully challenge their thinking, encouraging them to frame their cutting-edge innovations in the context of the world at large.
Ying Wang, Principal Group Program Manager at Microsoft, has created a new kind of AI. Her bot is named Zo, and while most chatbots are built for utility (answering questions and providing customer service in a highly scripted format), Ying created Zo with a different goal in mind — to form an emotional connection with her human counterpart. Zo is continuously learning and evolving based on what she learns from every interaction. What I like most about Zo is that she represents AI and Machine Learning, complicated and nebulous concepts for many people, in a way that is accessible and impactful.
I then interviewed Heather Cassano, Head of Product Design at Google. She uses Machine Learning in a different way that is also very tangible, although, by design, most users may not even consciously notice the results of her work. Her team analyzes how individuals interact with multiple Google products at a massive scale, and then utilizes Machine Learning to iterate the UI and design of these products in order to make them more useful and streamlined. Machine Learning has allowed her team to shift from a slower “test and learn” approach to a fast, iterative approach to UI design that is constantly tracking millions of data points and always evolving.
As fascinating as their stories were, my favorite part came at the end of the panel, when we opened up the floor to questions. I’ve done many, many panels and presentations at marketing events, and while the technologies and topics may vary, the challenges faced by the business world are more of a constant, and over time the questions asked by attendees can become repetitive. However, the questions asked by this audience both surprised and delighted me, because they came from a perspective outside of the marketing world. One attendee cut right to the heart of the matter by simply asking why she should want to talk to a computer, outside of the novelty factor. Another challenged us to explore how the increasing veracity of digital relationships with AIs could impact how we interact with other humans. The questions were thoughtful, insightful, and well beyond the typical scope of business challenges our clients face. It was refreshing to address these topics from a very different angle.
This event was truly unique, and it sparked many, many ideas and challenges that I’m now bringing back and contextualizing into the digital business world. Our clients count on us to solve their business challenges of today and tomorrow, and it’s by joining these types of conversations that we are informed and prepared to help them navigate the future that humans and machines are jointly creating.
