No country for Mad Men
The writing is on the wall for the ad industry – and it’s being written by a large-language model
THERE was a time when this marketing quip – “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half” – was good for a titter. Now, such a flippant statement must make even the most sanguine adman twitch nervously instead.
The twitching would have intensified last month on the news that Meta aims to fully automate the generation of ads on its platforms with artificial intelligence (AI) by the end of 2026. All a prospective advertiser will need is a product image and a budget, and Meta will take it from there, generating copy, visuals and video that will be buttressed by the company’s targeting and measurement abilities.
TikTok, too, is making further incursions into Mad Men territory with tools that enable marketers to turn text or images into video ads on the platform. These features will join its existing arsenal of digital avatars and voice-overs that it already offers through its video-editing service for advertisers.
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