Billed as a conversation among CMOs, this CES panel — moderated by Consumer Technology Association VP of Marketing & Communications Melissa Harrison — drilled down into how major brands and advertising technology companies are integrating artificial intelligence into their pipelines and organizations. They agreed that, although this is still at the beginning stage and requires experimentation, those who are frozen and have not yet started engaging with AI will quickly be at a learning curve disadvantage. Still, panelists emphasized that AI will not replace human creativity.

“We’re all excited about generative AI,” said Index Exchange CMO Lori Goode. “I think it will take time, and we’ll discover new use cases as we advance, along with best practices and standards.”

Samsung Electronics Vice President Allison Stransky said her company feels like it’s “at the tipping point” for achieving personalization at scale. “Getting the creative to scale is always the hardest part,” she noted.

Harrison asked the panelists to describe the ways they’re currently using AI. Stagwell Chairman and Chief Executive Mark Penn explained his digital-first marketing company’s tools will help write the press release, send it to all the people likely to cover it and that pitch letter as well. “It might take somebody all day to do what we can do in a few minutes,” he said.

Goode notes that Index Exchange has been using machine learning in the programmatic ad marketplace for years. “We get nearly 500 billion requests for transactions per day,” she said. “We have this massive scale of data. We’re really investing in our AI technology to help with predictive modeling, to make it efficient from a compute perspective and match at scale across any device or screen.”

At Qualcomm, CMO Don McGuire said the company uses Writer on a daily and weekly basis. “We’re saving 2,400 hours per month on productivity across my organization by deploying Writer across scale,” he specified. “Writer’s user interface is very intuitive and has a Chrome plug-in so it was easy to get through our process of deployment.”

Harrison asked for the panelists to comment on data and privacy regarding AI. “I don’t think the regulatory approach to data and privacy fits what people really believe and what would work best for an efficient marketing system,” suggested Penn. “You shouldn’t have to print ‘accept’ for every website. Consumers could just file what data they’re okay for and create a zone of privacy where they only get what they’re okay sharing.”

When it came to the familiar question as to whether AI will replace people, McGuire laughed. “I don’t know any CMO that says they’re over-resourced and has everyone they need,” he said. “The world works at the speed of TikTok. At the end of the day, everyone wants to own their IP and it’s only ownable if you put your unique stamp on it.”

Stransky added that, “marketers should think about how their roles will evolve — and how they want it to evolve.”

As to the future of AI, McGuire said, “AI is becoming the new UI.” Penn said it will be “magnificently engaging.”

“The point is to be personal, to communicate with technology and receive responses that are like communicating with a person who knows something about you,” he said. “If we achieve that, we’ll ultimately have the most engaging marketing in the history of marketing.”