Dive Brief:
- At IAB Engage 2016, Brainient Chief Executive Emi Gal laid out a future where video ads will be embedded with AI bots that allow for actual conversation between the ad itself and the ad’s viewer, as reported by Campaign.
- Gal provided examples of what bot-driven conversation might be useful for, including allowing consumers to ask for more information or request a brochure.
- Chatbots are fast becoming a major part of the messaging app experience, with Domino’s creating a pizza order bot for Facebook and WeChat earning $100 million in sales via bots on Singles Day, a key spending time in the Chinese marketplace.
Dive Insight:
Gal presented the possibility of AI video ads as an overall positive, but while text-based bots that provide customer service or in-app payments are one thing, videos that demand more than a few seconds of users' time and attention could be seen as intrusive or possibly even creepy.
"These will be intelligent enough to replicate the experience you would have with a human representative in a store," Gal said at the talk. "The AI is there in terms of being able to replicate that experience. I think ads in the very near future will look like this, so that consumers will be able to talk to a brand while watching the ad, which is pretty exciting."
In June, IBM began running ads similar to what Gal described through The Weather Company's website — a then-recent acquisition of IBM’s — using Watson tech, though those were audio spots. As Campaign notes, the coming expansion of AI to video might help move bots past the phase where they're considered "gimmicky," a natural next step now that Facebook hosts over 11,000 branded bots on Messenger.