Indulge me for a second while I throw it back to my Sesame Street days and say this week has been brought to you by the letters “A” and “I”! Then, to shift from throwin’ it back to launching forward, I’ll elaborate by saying this week was chockful of conversations about AI and how it impacts our world now and the possibilities for the future. Whether in internal meetings, client status check-ins, an industry webinar, or even scrolling on TikTok, AI was THE prevalent topic of the week. It’s mind-blowing to see what is possible…though not without concerns about how AI exists in a largely unregulated environment. Given that there are enough fear-inducing headlines out there right now, I want to put the ethical, ownership, lack of humanity—and all other—concerns aside for the moment and share some of the discussions and advances in AI that were getting me jazzed these past few days.  

• It started with discussing this Ad Age article with my colleague, Janelle, which states, “telling AI to imitate ‘a drunk friend at a bar’ is one way to get it to do its best work.” She tried it out and we were pleasantly surprised at how it took a complex idea and made it simple. She “fed” it the job of creating a media pitch for workforce development and our jaws hit the floor with how compelling it was. “Did we just make ourselves redundant,” we nervously laughed knowing full well we had to feed the beast so we’re still needed. But, it was actually a great pitch…jury’s out on whether it will land us a placement. That’s still up to us.  
• At our all-agency weekly staff meeting we hosted a “getting to know you” sesh with our new Rinckster, Samantha, during which we talked about the biggest opportunities and challenges facing our industry. Inevitably, AI came up. There is no denying AI will impact our work given that the possibilities are endless. But, also endless are the concerns. It will certainly be a whole new world to navigate, but here at Rinck our tagline is “You’re going to love what happens next,” and that is something that we’ve embraced through every cultural shift, emerging platform, or industry shake-up. AI will be no different.

• Next up, as I was winding down after work one evening engaging in my nightly scroll through TikTok, I came across this video demonstrating how Google’s Notebook LM allows you to submit documents and convert complex material into easy-to-understand formats, including essentially two-person artificial podcasts. Yes, podcasts! I immediately sent it to my coworker GC.  
• I could not resist trying it out, so I plugged in some talking points we’re working on for an upcoming interview we’ve arranged for one of my favorite clients, Novonesis. It was love at first listen. We get so passionate talking about the ways that their work with biological solutions is addressing various challenges of our world and these two very non-biological “podcasters” nailed it! Check it out!
• And if you are a content creator and that wasn’t music to your ears already, how about ACTUAL music? While sharing some of these AI revelations with the Novonesis team, our client shared that he has become a fan of SUNO and has used it to create songs both professionally (having just created a song for his colleagues about their recent brand summit in Copenhagen) and personally (sharing a catchy little tune with friends after a tubing trip). Since I was already geeking out, I decided to give SUNO a whirl too and put in less than 200 characters about bidding farewell to a beloved member of our Rinck team and within less than a minute, I had a beautiful tearjerker to help send her off to her next adventure.  
• The final AI touchpoint in the week was having the opportunity to join a great panel on “AI in the Creator Economy” sponsored by Women in Influencer Marketing. The WIIM panelists led a robust discussion on everything from CGI creators to ways to find efficiency with influencer partnership management utilizing AI. We only covered the tip of the A-Iceberg, but it was a fantastic presentation nonetheless.  

In summary, AI may at times feel intimidating, but it doesn’t need to be entirely a scary space. We just need to embrace and evaluate before diving in. What are the risks and rewards? Utilizing AI can lead to efficiency, potentially improved results, and can help us unlock time to invest in other things that still—and always will—require a human element.  

What do you think? Have you or are you utilizing AI in your work? Are you ready to embrace it?