AI brings together seven billion ways of thinking at the click of a button: Sowmya Iyer

When Chat GPT launched at the end of last year everyone went through waves of curiosity, scepticism and even resistance. Some creative agencies also happened to ban it. 

But now, we have come to a point of embracing Chat GPT or open AI. If not really using it fully, we have come to a stage of acceptance, said Sowmya Iyer, Founder and CEO of DViO Digital - a global creative-tech and digital-first marketing organisation.

Iyer was speaking at the first edition of e4m iDAC 2023 on unlocking the power of brand building with tech-driven digital marketing. Iyer shared that she was mandated to use Open AI with DViO more from a creative and production standpoint. 

“We are going through a behavioral change as humanity. Everything will need to change and therefore the pertinent question to answer here is ‘What is the most important skill set that will be relevant in the coming times?’

“Even with the talent that we're recruiting as marketers, agencies and brands irrespective of the industry is what we call prompt engineering.” 

According to Iyer, prompt engineering is nothing but the ability to interact with AI tools and bring out the best output from the AI tools.

“Therefore every young talent out there needs to deep dive into the world of AI tools. There are about a thousand of them that are launched every week.” 

Iyer quoted Tim Urban who says that the human colossus refers to the collective intelligence and capabilities of the entire human population working together. “He suggests that while individual human intelligence is limited the combination of human minds collaborating effectively can achieve remarkable feats,” she added.

“It's mind-boggling and excitingly scary as well. Imagine every way of thinking, every analysis that is out there in the market; it's literally seven billion ways of thinking available to you at the click of a button.” 

She said that AI and machine learning have been around for a while now but what really happened is that they became usable. It had a user interface which didn't require coding knowledge for all of us to access the power of AI.” 

She further added that AI works as an equaliser. She said, “One may have the best idea for a product because of one’s ability to observe the human condition, which gives you the insight to develop the best product but you may not have the resources to build this product. With AI, you won't need it.  The best idea wins so in some sense I look at AI as an equalizer.”  

Speaking about whether a brand is a product business or a platform business. She explained that the former is a business model that creates value by delivering products and services down the supply chain and the latter is a model that creates value by building and tapping into network effects. 

She also highlighted that businesses that have access to first-party data, first-party; first-hand consumer information are wildly winning today. “While we are developing some of these tools and working on them, the foundation needs to take care of brand discovery without bias.”