SHIFT was joined by leading media agencies from across Europe and beyond. The attendees included agencies of all shapes and sizes, from global networks to boutique agencies, but SHIFT were the only agency focused on cycling and the great outdoors.

The main theme of the event was that we are at the start of a significant shift – the beginning of the AI era. Suzanne Claassen (Managing Director for Google Customer Solutions CEE), kicked off the session by quoting Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google’s parent company, Alphabet. She said he often speaks about the importance of ‘capturing the tension’ – balancing the progress of AI against society’s readiness to accept it.

In this context, Suzanne also discussed moving from the current focus on AI tools delivering efficiency to using AI to drive real innovation. To achieve this, all businesses need an AI action plan. She explained how, in her team, she was always looking to see how AI could lift work off their shoulders, enabling them to focus more on areas where they could make a real difference.

After the opening address, there was a deliberately provocative keynote by one inspiring speaker, Rishad Tobaccowala (former Global CSO of Publicis). Namely that in his opinion, AI is currently “underhyped”. He described it as being as impactful as the arrival of the microchip, the internet, and the smartphone combined, multiplied by three! Troublingly for the audience, he pointed out that if you think ‘what you know is your value,’ you won’t have a job in a year! He said we are moving into the 3rd digital age: the first being all about search and e-commerce, the second dominated by social, mobile, and streaming, and the third now being about data connecting with data. In this new world, he noted, AI will ultimately become like electricity – a business will run on it, but it won’t be differentiating. He urged attendees to ask, ‘How will AI help my strategy?’ rather than, ‘What is my AI strategy?’.

Another key theme from the day centred on the speed of change, which has been remarkable in terms of Google’s own products. Google’s AI is now 100 times more efficient than it was two years ago, and the rate of improvement is doubling every four months. That’s true exponential growth! This means that something you thought wasn’t possible or effective in January could be brilliant by December. Throughout the summit, Google focused on seeing AI as the collaborator. In Rachel Auth Melgaard’s (Google’s Director of Global AI Search Ads) presentation, she emphasised the importance of the 'human touch' in improving performance. In their studies, while AI improved performance by +20%, with strategic human input, you could achieve a further +15% improvement in effectiveness. Rachel also ended her presentation by acknowledging that what Google has worked on with agencies over the past 20 years – especially complex account structures with large keyword footprints that cannot be contextualised by automation systems – now needs to change radically to take full advantage of AI’s potential for performance improvement.

All in all, everyone left the summit recognising that AI is here, and we all need to rethink how we do everything to ensure we keep pace and remain relevant.

Written by Wayne Brown, CEO.

For any questions, email wayne.brown@shiftactivemedia.com