Google is reportedly planning to integrate generative artificial intelligence (AI) into its advertising business in the coming months, joining other Big Tech companies in incorporating the groundbreaking technology into their products. According to an internal presentation shared with advertisers and reviewed by the Financial Times, Google plans to use the AI to generate new ads based on content produced by human marketers.
While Google already uses AI in its advertising business to create simple prompts to encourage users to buy products, the incorporation of its latest generative AI, which powers its Bard chatbot, will allow the company to create more sophisticated campaigns resembling those produced by marketing agencies.
According to the presentation, advertisers can provide “creative” content, including imagery, video, and text related to a specific campaign, and the AI will then remix this material to generate ads based on the intended audience and other goals, such as sales targets. However, some individuals familiar with the presentation have expressed concern that the tool could potentially spread misinformation since chatbots powered by AI can confidently state falsehoods.
Google has stated that it plans to implement strict measures to prevent “hallucinations” or errors caused by its generative AI, as it prepares to roll out its new features in the coming months. This move comes as Big Tech companies compete to leverage generative AI, which has gained significant attention recently for its ability to create highly sophisticated material, including text and images, in response to human inputs.
The upcoming generative AI technology will be integrated into Performance Max, a program that Google launched in 2020. Performance Max employs an algorithm to determine the optimal ad placement and how marketing budgets should be allocated, while also generating basic ad copy. The advertising industry is currently facing several challenges, including rising costs and greater limitations on the use of personal data for marketing purposes.
In the last quarter of 2020, Google experienced a 4 percent decline in advertising revenue, resulting in only a 1 percent growth in overall revenue for its parent company, Alphabet. As social media platforms rely heavily on advertising revenue, they are increasingly turning to automation technologies to attract clients. Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, introduced a similar program to Performance Max called Advantage+ last year. It also aims to implement generative AI in its advertising systems by the end of 2022.
Last month, Google launched its Bard chatbot, aiming to rival Microsoft-backed OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which can produce human-like responses to questions and prompts. Google has also recently integrated generative AI into its widely used productivity tools, such as Google Workspace, Google Docs, and Gmail.
