Technology
An Epoch for our Industry: How AI Will Change the Way We Do Business
By Brett Harris
SGK has been firmly rooted in a culture of unyielding innovation, perpetually propelling our organization towards the forefront of industry advancements and creating scaled solutions to meet the needs of the globe’s most influential brands.
Over the past decade, our voyage in exploration and development has included the creation of industry leading artwork management tools, spurred investment in content automation solutions, and integrated machine learning and image recognition technologies to enhance quality control measures.
Through this journey, we have acquired and honed our expertise in the realm of machine learning technologies for quality control and automation tasks and remain committed to continually evaluating their use cases within our organization.
As we embark on a new era, we recognize the potential of generative AI platforms to amplify the creative process, enable one-to-one communications at scale, reshape brand-consumer interactions and transform business in profound ways. As always, we also carefully consider the risks these technologies may pose and promote good governance principles for their use.
Amplifying the creative process by enabling one-to-one communications at scale
We already know that recent advancements in generative AI platforms that can produce content across multiple mediums (including copy, imagery, video, and audio) provide substantial potential to amplify the creative process. They enable truly one-to-one communications at scale. Similarly, these technologies will empower us to synthesize large data sets to unlock a wealth of consumer insights, and at the same time, drive internal operation efficiencies that will be truly transformative.
Complex imagery without photoshop: we’re already using AI to bring creative concepts to life faster than ever before. These images were created using mid-journey, utlizing prompts set by our creative team.
Reshaping how brands and consumers interact
At SGK, we believe generative AI will be a foundational tool within the agency, powering our teams to forge new paths in brand development and activation. These tools will not replace human creativity but enhance it; revolutionizing the way brands and consumers interact. They will help us to create personalized, immersive experiences that will help us to forge deeper connections with our clients’ target audiences, to promote enhanced brand loyalty and increased engagement.
Risks and responsibilities
While we recognize the immense potential of generative AI, we are also acutely aware of the accompanying risks and responsibilities. Natural biases, incorrect responses (otherwise known as AI hallucinations), data privacy and intellectual property rights are all key areas our organizational governance over AI initiatives will address. Through user training and policies, a robust technology selection process, and appropriate contracting and risk management, we will work through these concerns. Most importantly, our use of generative AI tools will be based on transparency. Transparency in the tools we are using, transparency in how AI fits within our workflows, and transparency in the use of AI for all published output.
The precipice of an exciting epoch
As Gary Kohl, President of SGK, sums up: “We are on the precipice of what appears to be an exciting new era for our industry. Generative AI tools are poised to usher in a new age of creativity and consumer engagement. It is our ambition to empower our clients to leverage these tools in a seamless, ethical manner to amplify their brand’s performance. We aim to offer these services at scale, with adaptability, across channels and regions.”
AI software was used to help speed up the initial drafting of this article. It was then honed, shaped and brought to life by the power of the human mind.