Aotearoa Independent Media Agencies CEO Simon Teagle opened the Converge Conference with the words: “Today is a celebration.”
And with a room filled with independent agencies and industry top dogs, how could it not be? The afternoon summit, held on August 6 at the New Zealand International Convention Centre in Tāmaki Makaurau, was an opportunity to collaborate and have all-important business conversations.
“A day of inspiration, education and for me, a bit of perspiration,” Teagle continued to much laughter from the audience.
AI deep dive
His address was short and sweet to leave as much time as possible for keynote speaker Dr Mahsa McCauley, whose session was sponsored by TVNZ.
McCauley is an internationally recognised leader in artifitical intelligence and holds a number of roles, including head of department of computer and information sciences at the Auckland University of Technology. She is also the communication and information commissioner for the New Zealand National Commission for Unesco and chairs AI Forum New Zealand.
With the conference theme ‘Indie edge, human advantage’, her talk was a fascinating deep dive into the world of AI and what its progression means for the people in the room.
“It’s about people, educators, leaders, creators, how we use and how we lead in the time of uncertainties by keeping what matters the most, people, at the centre,” says McCauley.
“Before I start, is anyone here secretly a little bit terrified of AI? You don’t need to confess, just blink twice,” she added, which saw elicited some laughs as well as a bit of eye fluttering from the audience.
Be like a sponge
Her advice on how to navigate this AI revolution is to be like a sponge. Then she actually pulls out a sponge on stage for visual effect. Soak, squeeze, spring back, she says.
“When a sponge absorbs water, it doesn’t resist. And when you squeeze it, it releases what it doesn’t need and holds onto what matters. So it’s all about embracing new ideas, technologies with curiosity. Last year, we had over 70,000 AI platforms – do we need to know all that? We really need to be able to filter out this misinformation and only hold onto what is really going to serve you, your organisations, your staff.
“Finally, with the spring back, it’s all about recover, adapt and keep going. Resilience isn’t about never falling, it’s about how fast you can get back up,” says McCauley.
The next slide was one of her presentation’s key takeaways. It described three types of AI:
- Artificial narrow intelligence (ANI): machine learning. Specialises in one area and solves one problem, like Siri, Alexa or Cortana.
- Artificial general intelligence (AGI): machine intelligence. Refers to a computer that is as smart as a human.
- Artificial super intelligence (ASI): machine consciousness. When the intelligence of a system surpasses average human intelligence. “All of those doom and gloom stories of Terminator, robots taking over the world,” says McCauley.
Despite what the major AI companies would have people believe, the world is still very much in the ANI era. “We started scratching the surface of artificial general intelligence. Well, we’re not there yet,” she adds. In much the same vein, agentic AI is not yet at the level that everyone thinks it is.
“Our systems are not that mature that they can be fully automated,” says McCauley.
Judgement curve
The journey people are facing now when it comes to AI is a judgement curve rather than a learning curve, says McCauley: “Speed without direction is just expensive chaos. We need to know when to use it and when not to trust it.”
Especially as more young people grow up with access to this technology, our role is not to stop them, but rather to help them navigate it, she adds. Moving forward, she see the human advantage as rooted in soft skills like resilience, creativity and curiosity and the ability to collaborate.
McCauley closed off her presentation talking about something that is often missing from other AI sessions I’ve attended: the societal risks of AI.
AI platforms don’t think, they reflect, says McCauley. She gives an example: research from the UK found that case notes summarised by AI used completely different language when the person’s gender was changed, despite patient history staying the same. An 84-year-old man who lives along and was struggling with his mobility became an 84-year-old woman living alone but was managing her health independently.
People are also reporting increased feeling loneliness, thanks to AI technology that is replacing genuine human connection, McCauley adds.
But she finished on a more positive note: “The future of work is up to us to define. It’s not about the AI companies, tech vendors, it’s us, the people who are using it. It is a future we can actively shape, rather than passively accept.
“New Zealand has a light touch, low risk approach to artificial intelligence. That’s a good thing to have. I’m questioning this technology,” she adds, but her final reminder was that the world around us is changing fast. “We all have to jump on that train before it leaves the station.”
Be clear
McCauley was followed by a panel discussion led by Contagion’s Jake Calder. He was joined by Momentum Group founder and CEO Natalia Taylor, QMS head of programmatic Max Charnin and Injctr founder Ben Dufty.
The following were my key takeaways:
- “What do you actually want to use AI for – don’t just use it because everyone is using it,” says Dufty.
- “Get together with your team and talk about it. I think knowledge sharing is our greatest power as humans,” says Taylor.
- “Be clear as business leaders what the use cases are and where people can utilise AI,” says Charnin.
I want to take a moment here for the emcee, broadcaster and journalist Ryan Bridge, for telling it like it is in the newsroom. He closed off this segment by saying: “In my line of work, we’re sort of allergic to AI. If you use it in my line of work, that becomes a story. We just don’t go near it.”
Secret sauce
The Radio Bureau CEO Alistair Jamison took the stage next to talk about why radio continues to create powerful connections with people.
People love audio because it’s agile, accessible, allows them to multi-task, but most of all because it creates a sense of community, he says.
For brands, audio mediums should still be an important part of their advertising budgets, but the key is to execute content that works to the strength of that channel, Jamison adds.
“We can talk about AI and it’s all wonderful, but at the end of the day, we all want human connection and we want to connect to something that we understand, believe in, makes us happy, pisses us off, whatever it is. And that is the secret sauce of audio.”
He then handed over the microphone to Flava breakfast host Azura Lane and broadcaster and radio programmer Reagan White who shared their experiences working in radio and how they create content that connects with people.
Indie dates
After a brief break for refreshments, it was time to head back into the board room for a series called Decoding Indies where each table in the room was headlined by an agency leaders. Attendees had pre-booked who they wanted to speak to and spent 10 minutes at each chosen table over the next hour.
The indies represented included:
- 36Presents
- Acquire Digital
- Authentic Digital
- Calibre + Candor
- Contagion
- D3
- EightyOne Media
- Hot Mustard
- HTMG
- Lassoo Media
- Momentum Group
- Sneakers Media
- Stanley St
- Tilt Advertising
- Together
- YoungShand.
The rest of the conference closed out with canapes, networking and a round of spot prizes.
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