Tag: Generative AI

Seattle, USA – Amazon Ads has launched image generation in beta—a generative AI solution designed to remove creative barriers and enable brands to produce lifestyle imagery that helps improve their ads’ performance. 

For example, an advertiser may have standalone images of their product against a white background, like a toaster. When that same toaster is placed in a lifestyle context—on a kitchen counter, next to a croissant—in a mobile Sponsored Brands ad, click-through rates can be 40% higher compared to ads with standard product images.

According to the company, the solution is helpful for advertisers of all sizes—enabling those that do not have in-house capabilities or agency support to more easily create brand-themed imagery, while also supporting bigger brands, who are constantly looking for ways to be more efficient around creative development. 

In the Amazon Ad Console, advertisers simply select their product and click Generate, with the tool leveraging generative AI to deliver a set of lifestyle and brand-themed images, based on product details, in a matter of seconds. The image can then be refined by entering short text prompts, while multiple versions can be quickly created and tested to optimize performance.

According to Colleen Aubrey, senior vice president at Amazon Ads Products and Technology, with the launch of their image generation capability, any advertiser can now use a simple tool to create unique, lifestyle creative assets that make their campaigns more compelling, and at no additional cost.

“Producing engaging and differentiated creatives can increase cost and often requires introducing additional expertise into the advertising process. At Amazon Ads, we are always thinking about ways we can reduce friction for our advertisers, provide them with tools that deliver more impact while minimizing effort, and ultimately, deliver a better advertising experience for our customers,” she said.

Aubrey added, “Providing tools to make image generation simple and easy is another way for us to support advertisers while also making the ads our customers see more engaging and visually rich. It’s a perfect use for generative AI—less effort and better outcomes.”

Australia – Australian-based digital asset management company Collaboro has signed a deal with Macquarie Cloud Services, part of Macquarie Technology Group, to store and preserve the quality of media assets for the country’s major brands.

The partnership comes as Collaboro finds an alternative to its previous public cloud solution as storage to handle its more than 3.5 petabytes (PB) of data, equivalent to around 70 million tall filing cabinets.

With this new deal, Macquarie Cloud Services will develop a unique solution leveraging its Launch Private Cloud, which provides an instant cost reduction of about 30% for the digital asset management company. The reduction in cost is also projected to rise to around 50% as the environment scales and more data is added.

This Launch Private Cloud platform is built on Dell Technologies infrastructure solutions, including Dell ECS Enterprise Object Storage and Dell PowerEdge Servers. It is equipped with a high-speed Megaport cloud bandwidth connection and is contained and managed from Macquarie Data Centres’ sovereign, government-certified facilities for enhanced data security and protection, an essential requirement for government and enterprise CMOs and CIOs when it comes to sensitive data.

The system also offers zero egress or ingress charges and vastly more predictable head-room costs for scaling compute and AI resourcing. This is a major benefit for Collaboro’s customers, especially since in its old system, the costs for transferring data to and from the cloud were skyrocketing.

Additionally, Collaboro is developing AI-driven government, risk and compliance (GRC) capabilities, and searchability that can automatically label, search for, and identify specific people, things, words, and more within images and video content.

This enhancement in the company’s technology comes as the sheer volume of new assets being generated and presented to the market across a multitude of channels inside heavily regulated industries makes it impossible to do it manually. The process is especially vital, particularly for customers in these highly regulated industries.

Collaboro aims to help companies utilise the various AI-generation tools for imagery and videos by presenting learning datasets so that customers can tailor generative engines specifically to their brand through the use of machine learning (ML) on existing collateral.

The digital asset management company works with government agencies and enterprise marketing teams, including McDonald’s Australia and New Zealand, Optus, Sportsbet, Youi, the NSW Department of Education, and many more. 

It provides unique Australian-engineered SaaS technology that solves the problem of centrally storing, managing, surfacing, and sharing large-scale digital media asset libraries.

Collaboro has had a process of continuing investment in platform and process, focused on the core strategic topics of managing customer data with lower and more predictable costs and preparing customer data for the future of generative AI.

Warwick Boulter, founder and CEO at Collaboro, said, “The Avatar sequel is believed to have around 18.5 PB of data attached to it, but that number pales compared to the amount of data major brands around Australia hold for their advertising and marketing programs. Compressing data is not an option in these circumstances because once the pixel is gone, it’s gone, and the quality is lost forever. We’ve built our technology to maintain that quality while maximising efficiency.”

He continued, “Australian companies use a stockpile of existing assets to weave into different marketing and ad campaigns. That’s important for brand consistency, but it means moving large data files around more than would be typical in other departments. As the data stockpile grows, so can the transfer costs; Macquarie Cloud Services keeps this element of cost at exactly zero. Further, the ability for our customers to leverage their vast marketing asset pool as a training set for future generative engines will rely heavily on that asset pool being easily available and deployable, i.e., not constrained by egress and transfer costs.”

“We have gambling, insurance, and alcoholic beverage clients who adhere to legislation on what can be shown in their advertisements. We will shortly have the ability to apply rules within our SaaS platform to run intelligent searches over their media assets to make sure they’re compliant with the law and provide immediate reporting and dashboarding of GRC topics. This saves so much time and lowers regulatory risk. The additional capacity we have with Macquarie Cloud Services helps to enable these advances because you need a long data runway once AI is involved. They’re on that journey with us, redesigning their cloud services and data centres for the AI era,” Boulter added.

Meanwhile, Jonathan Staff, head of private cloud at Macquarie Cloud Services, said, “Collaboro is an example of Australian innovation at its best, one which is helping modernise a data-heavy industry. Data is always growing, but in an industry where quality is everything, it’s easy to lose control and even easier for costs to spiral.”

“Collaboro has solved this issue. It’s foresight to add further value by incorporating AI searchability into its stack also shows how in tune the company is with its customers needs. Our private cloud is critical at a time when cloud costs are rising and choice is diminishing because we can manage the data while balancing cost, security, and sovereignty,” he added.

Singapore – 90% of organisations were hit with at least one major cyber attack in the last year, with 83% of security leaders have paid ransoms to their attackers during cyberattacks, according to data security and IT software provider Splunk’s 2023 global CISO survey which covered 350 security leaders in total as respondents.

According to the report, more than half of the respondents paid at least $100,000, and every 1-in-11 paid a staggering $1 million or more.

Specifically, numerous industries experienced ransomware attacks that significantly impacted their systems and business operations, including financial services (59%), retail (59%) and healthcare (52%). The retail industry is the most likely to pay the ransom, with 95% of respondents reporting they either paid directly, through cyber insurance or a third party.

While all regions reported paying the ransom, APAC was more likely to pay $1 million or more as compared to its counterparts, and also suffered the most from disruptive cyber attacks.

Notably, 86% of surveyed chief information security officers (CISOs) believe that generative AI will alleviate skills gaps and talent shortages on the security team, filling labour-intensive and time-consuming security functions and freeing up security professionals to be more strategic. 35% percent report using generative AI for positive security applications and an additional 61% will likely use it within the next 12 months.

On the other hand, 70% of CISOs also believe generative AI could give cyber adversaries more opportunities to attack, yet 35% are already experimenting with it for cyber defence including malware analysis, workflow automation and risk scoring.

CISOs also overwhelmingly responded that tool sprawl is a major concern, likely adding to existing visibility issues. Majority say they see a need to rein in security analysis and operations tools with solutions like security orchestration, automation and response (SOAR), security information and event management (SIEM) and threat intelligence. CISOs are looking to decrease the number of tools they use and simplify processes with automation.

The report also mentioned that CISOs and organisations are now prioritising cybersecurity, with 47% of organisations now adding CISOs as part of the C-suite, and 93% of respondent CISOs expecting an increase in their cybersecurity budget over the next year. Additionally, 92% of respondents report either a significant or moderate increase in cybersecurity collaboration between security teams, IT and engineering organisations, largely driven by initiatives like digital transformation, cloud native development and a greater emphasis on risk management.

Jason Lee, CISO at Splunk, said, “The C-Suite and board of directors are increasingly relying on CISOs for guidance across a sophisticated threat landscape and changing market conditions. These relationships provide CISOs the opportunity to become champions who strengthen an organisation’s security culture and lead teams to become more cross-collaborative and resilient.”

“By communicating key security metrics, CISOs can also guide boards on adopting emerging technologies, such as generative AI, to help improve cyber defence management and prepare for the future,” he added.

Singapore – Multinational computer software company Adobe and global advertising agency Havas has recently announced an expanded partnership, transforming the agency’s end-to-end content workflows and paving the way for a smarter and more responsible content supply chain.

The collaboration will enable all Havas agencies to leverage Adobe generative AI to deliver personalised customer experiences more efficiently. 

Havas agencies will adopt Adobe GenStudio, enabling them to accelerate the content process from ideation to delivery, while also giving them direct access to Adobe Firefly, to generate content that is designed to be safe for commercial use.

Additionally, Havas agencies will be able to choose which content creation techniques and practices they employ, as well as how they prefer to leverage generative AI when activating new and variant content. 

They will also gain access to audience-specific data insights, enabling impact-based content optimization, and Adobe GenStudio’s seamless collaboration features, which empower cross-functional teams to create, edit and deliver customer experiences in real time.

Commenting on the partnership, Yannick Bolloré, chairman and global CEO, Havas and chairman, Vivendi, said, “This partnership will enable us to harness the latest technologies, combining the strength of Adobe’s cutting-edge software with the deep well of Havas’ brand expertise to create a ‘meaningful AI’ that not only meets but exceeds the expectations of our clients.” 

Meanwhile, Anil Chakravarthy, president, digital experience at Adobe, added, “We’re excited to see how Havas redefines content creation and innovates with our solutions to embed sustainability and generative AI with Firefly into their content supply chain.”

Singapore – With almost 63% of marketers already using it, generative AI is expected to shape the industry in the coming months, a report from dentsu revealed. 

According to the new dentsu report, generative AI, together with monetization and integrity economics, are among the rising trends set to transform the media industry in 2024 and beyond. 

Around 63% of marketers have said they’ve already started engaging with generative AI in their company. With this, the report predicts that technology will take centre stage, covering areas such as creativity, media planning, and production.

The report showed three trends in generative AI. These trends are the rise of generative search, the augmentation of human creativity in fields like content and image development, and generative optimisations, where generative AI simplifies advertising production, targeting, and effectiveness.

The dentsu report also revealed key predictions pointing to the race to monetisation between tech platforms. These tech platforms are expected to double down on becoming more protective of their data, understanding their users, and stepping up their advertising offerings as they continue to monetize their services. 

This megatrend incorporates trends like a world of lookalike apps where platforms become progressively similar. Also part of these trends are the platforms having a more defensive stance on their data, doubling down on people intelligence, and expanding advertising to new areas for most platforms.

Lastly, the latest report also showed trends leaning towards integrity economics, where the focus is on brands and their sustainable contributions to society. Brands that can build more carbon-efficient, diverse, and safe online spaces for people and other brands may achieve more success.

According to the report, this trend is highlighted by media consumption becoming increasingly diverse and personal, new developments in brand assurance that create safer environments for both people and brands, and brands implementing carbon media efficiency strategies. 

The latest report highlights the key trends within each of these three areas of interest and provides suggestions on how brands can capitalise on them in the short and long term. 

Peter Huijboom, global CEO for media international markets at dentsu, said, “Our own client research has shown that more than 60% of marketers have said they’ve already started engaging with generative AI in their company. So, in our dentsu 2024 Media Trends report, it was important for us to identify and introduce the additive advantages, trends, and technologies to help them progress in this space.” 

Huijboom continued, “When we bring our experts together from our media agencies and from all around the world to create these predictions, it is essential that we showcase the most pressing topics and the best opportunities for the future. This report does exactly that, in a convenient and easily accessible way.”

Speaking on the report, Anita Kotwani, CEO of media for South Asia at dentsu, also said,  “Artificial intelligence (AI) is not just a buzzword, but a game-changer for the media industry. It has the power to automate, optimise, and personalise various aspects of media planning, buying, and execution. It can also unleash the creative potential of media professionals by enabling them to generate new and engaging content, formats, and experiences for their audiences. This is what we call generative AI, and it is the focus of our 14th edition of the Media Trends Report.”

“At dentsu, we take pride in our insightful expertise that keeps us ahead of the competitive curve. We are always exploring new ways to leverage AI for our clients, partners, and employees. The Media Trends Report deep-dives into one of the most disruptive technologies, AI, taking us through the many trends that serve generative AI on a platter. It aims to enable readers to reshape their work dynamics, tapping into the untapped potential through its many facets,” Kotwani added. 

Singapore – According to recent Adobe research, Singaporean brands are attempting to improve operational efficiency through the implementation of technology solutions, with 70% focusing on improving workflow efficiency and 59% implementing generative AI. This is despite the fact that there has been an evident lag of firms adopting it not just in Singapore but also in the region.

In Southeast Asia (SEA), only 64% of brands prioritise technologies that improve workflows, and 56% incorporate generative AI into their operations in Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand. However, the research shows that Singaporean brands’ formal integration of generative AI into their business processes lags behind both consumer demand and employee utilisation.

Consumers in Singapore are positive about how generative AI can improve products and services (33%), as well as improve the customer experience (37%). Notably, 39% of Singaporean consumers believe that adopting generative AI is critical for businesses to remain competitive, outpacing the 35% figure in the rest of Southeast Asia (SEA).

In work settings, 94% of Singaporean employees have already used generative AI in marketing and customer experience campaigns, while only 31% report that their employers are currently using generative AI tools. Text-to-image generators are used by 58% of these employees to create promotional brand materials and content, and 55% use them to develop campaign concepts and mock-ups. Furthermore, half of the workforce (50%) uses conversational AI for tasks like copy generation, research, and insight gathering.

In Southeast Asia (SEA), 95% of employees use generative AI tools for marketing campaigns, while only 42% of SEA respondents say their companies are currently implementing generative AI tools.

Simon Dale, vice president and managing director, Southeast Asia & Korea, Adobe, said, “A large majority of employees across SEA are incorporating generative AI tools at work, underscoring an urgent need for organisations to get ahead of the curve in AI usage regulations and policies. As generative AI technologies continue to evolve, an absence of a set of strong guardrails and AI ethics principles can pose risks to the organisation and even erode consumer trust.” 

Australia – Global commercial software company SnapLogic has announced its partnership with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to expand the capabilities of SnapGPT, SnapLogic’s generative integration interface. 

As part of this collaboration, SnapLogic will make Anthropic’s cutting-edge Large Language Model (LLM), Claude 2, offered by Amazon Bedrock, available within the SnapGPT platform that was made generally available earlier this year. 

When integrated, SnapGPT will empower users to use Anthropic’s state-of-the-art LLM Claude 2 to build new integrations, define existing pipelines, create new expressions, and more using natural language prompts, allowing access to Claude 2’s advanced natural language processing and generation abilities that can accept prompts containing up to 75,000 words or 100,000 tokens. 

SnapGPT also leverages the larger prompt size of Claude 2 to offer a more powerful integration co-pilot that enhances performance across a wider range of applications, providing an ease of use that will allow businesses to roll-out citizen integration to clear backlog and drive business agility.

Specifically, the key benefits of SnapLogic using Amazon Bedrock include, allowing customers to generate integration pipelines directly from natural language instructions for accessibility, create complex data mapping configurations using natural language inputs, generate SQL queries from natural language queries, describe intricate data pipelines in plain language, as well as a new chat-based Q&A feature for users. 

Talking about the collaboration, Jeremiah Stone, CTO of SnapLogic, said, “SnapLogic is committed to providing our customers with the most advanced language models available, and our work with Amazon Bedrock and the integration of Anthropic’s model Claude 2 into SnapGPT is a testament to that commitment.”

Meanwhile, Rich Geraffo, vice president of North America at AWS, commented, “We are excited to work with SnapLogic to bring the power of Amazon Bedrock to SnapGPT users. This collaboration will enable organisations to leverage the capabilities of Amazon Bedrock and AWS’s generative AI expertise to drive innovation and enhance their data processing workflows.”

SnapLogic’s integration with Anthropic’s model Claude 2 will be available to SnapGPT users immediately, with comprehensive documentation and support to ensure a seamless transition.

Malaysia – Advertising agency Naga DDB Tribal has unveiled its first-ever generative AI certification programme that invigorates creativity within its agency team in partnership with US-based business innovation and inspiration consultancy OK Tomorrow.

The AI masterclass for creative excellence is expected to be a game-changer for the creative agency. The 9-week mandatory training programme will cover the three core learning modules and will involve even the agency’s internal AI experts.

As part of the masterclass’s core learning module, the members will learn about AI fundamentals for creative agencies, which will focus on understanding the AI landscape and its role in the creative process. This will also include the creative use of genAI tools such as ChatGPT, Midjourney, and Stable Diffusion.

The training will also cover how to leverage AI for ideation and brainstorming to equip the agency team with techniques to spark creativity in the early stages of the creative process and AI-assisted time management and task prioritisation, which will tackle how to use AI in day-to-day tasks.

The generative AI masterclass will be led by Nilesh Ashra, founder and programme trainer at OK Tomorrow.

Nilesh has a background in business, advertising, storytelling, and technology. He founded Wieden+Kennedy’s innovation business, “The Lodge”, and served as the creative executive overseeing the business’s creative output. He is also familiar with the challenges and opportunities faced by the creative industry today.

The training programme this year is part of Naga DDB Tribal’s internal initiatives to intensify training efforts in the four key pillars: core creative, new skills, collaboration, and leadership.This is in addition to other initiatives such as The Bernbach School, led by DDB veteran Craig Lonnee, and other various external training programmes such as Effective Communications & Presentation Skills by Enfiniti Academy and Digital Marketing Mindset by The Monster School.

Alex Goh, chief strategy officer at Naga DDB Tribal, said, “AI holds the potential to assist us in multiple ways—either by guiding us towards ‘better’ outcomes through exploring a wider array of possibilities at a faster pace or by freeing up time through the automation of routine tasks. This time can then be channelled where it matters most—in crafting brand experiences that are not just valuable but also leave a lasting impression.”

He added, “This bespoke training programme aims to empower its creative, brand management, and strategy teams to harness the capabilities of artificial intelligence to generate superior ideas and creative content at the speed demanded by the business landscape.”

Speaking on the training, Clarence Koh, CEO at Naga DDB Tribal, added, “The only way to continually improve and stay relevant in our field is through continuous learning. Fresh ideas emerge from a collaborative and curious mindset, and we are committed to offering more structured training like this, along with our monthly virtual learning sessions, where experts from diverse fields share their experiences, perspectives, and skills with our team.”

Meanwhile, Nilesh said, “I’m convinced by the power of inspiration for creative businesses. When I started OK Tomorrow, I had a belief that if I could help creative companies stay ahead of the curve, it would make the process of creativity better. And better creativity means better products and brands. With Naga DDB Tribal, our goal is to equip each individual with a set of potential AI-assisted superpowers through the AI Masterclass and encourage them to seek not just efficiency but greater insight and breakthrough creativity. When this compounds across the entire company, some very exciting innovation will happen very quickly.”

Manila, Philippines – Google Philippines, in its ongoing commitment to build a ‘Digital Philippines’, has announced the availability of no-cost generative AI skills development courses, the ‘Google for AI Startups Cloud Program’, and three new Google Career Certificates.

Moreover, Google Cloud is also supporting more seed to early stage startups (Series A startups) in the Philippines who use AI as the core technology to develop products or solutions. 

Through the ‘Google for AI Startups Cloud Program’, startups now have the opportunity to access much-needed cloud credits of up to US$350k over two years. The program provides access to AI experts, training, resources and networking opportunities.

In addition, Google has added three additional courses–’Business Intelligence’, ‘Advanced Data Analytics’, and ‘Cybersecurity’–to its Google Career Certificates program. These certificates are professional credentials that help enable people from all backgrounds to earn job-ready skills in high-growth digital fields such as IT Support, UX Design, E-commerce and Digital Marketing.

Bernadette Nacario, country director at Google Philippines, said, “Google is a committed partner of the country in helping build a Digital Philippines. Through our technology, skilling programs, and partnerships, we will continue to help unleash the potential of the digital economy and empower the workforce of the future.”

Meanwhile, Jeffrey Ian Dy, Department of Information and Communications Technology Undersecretary for Connectivity, Cybersecurity, and Upskilling; commented, “Upskilling is so important for realizing career aspirations and improving lives. Programs like the Google Career Certificates and Google’s no-cost AI skilling courses will empower the country’s workforce to thrive in the digital economy. We are grateful to Google for its commitment to helping us build a Digital Philippines.”

Manila, Philippines – Local livestreaming platform Kumu and Google Cloud have announced a partnership in order to build AI tools to assist content creators in terms of entertainment, education, and customer service.

This collaboration between Kumu and Google Cloud aims to encourage more startups and enterprises alike to embrace the power of generative AI and to understand how this technology can best complement and strengthen their businesses. 

At a showcase event at the Google office in the Philippines, Rexy Dorado, co-founder and president at Kumu, showcased a live demo of “Crisostomo A.I. Barra”, Kumu’s first AI streamer who can respond to questions about Philippine history (even beyond what’s written in “Noli Me Tangere”, the novel that his character and personality was based on), the Kumu app, and general pop culture. Dorado also gave the attendees a sneak peek into other AI avatars in the pipeline: AI game show hosts, fortune tellers, tutors, tour guides, and customer support agents. 

An early adopter of Google Cloud’s generative AI capabilities for businesses, Kumu has been building its AI streamer and other AI avatars using Google Cloud’s PaLM 2 for Text and Chat first-party models, Embeddings for text and images, and Generative AI Studio – all of which can be accessed through the Vertex AI platform.

For the company, it has always sought ways to make Filipino content more fun and engaging with innovative technology. They added that as soon as generative AI started gaining traction, Kumu looked to an AI-first company like Google Cloud to explore how the technology could be applied to enhance its live content experiences.