Google x AI: What Is It and Why Is Everyone Talking About it?

2023 has seen the introduction of a new phrase to our everyday vocabulary – AI. Standing for Artificial Intelligence, AI isn’t a new concept to the modern world, but the latest developments in this field have us gripped. You might have heard of ChatGTP, which was the one that started the new movement of AI in everyday life. It’s essentially fed billions upon billions of conversations and learns from these conversations so that users can have conversations with the AI based on these language models. 

Why Is Everyone Talking About AI?

Although it sounds like a sophisticated ChatBot, the recent AI developments can do much more than have conversations with humans. Recently we’ve seen university students use the tech to write their essays – to the point where universities have upgraded their software to detect when work has been written by AI. Or you might have seen people across social media using AI for some lighthearted fun like generating images of people as if they were in a Wes Anderson movie. AI is a powerful tool that can deliver complex tasks in just a few clicks. Even just this month, Steven Bartlett released a Voice AI tool that automatically translates his podcast episodes into every major language.

I could have asked AI to write this blog post for me if I wanted to (I didn’t).

Over the last few months, other technology companies have been releasing their own AI products, such as Google’s AI called Bard which they claim to be much more sophisticated than ChatGTP.

This type of AI has definitely divided the world, with some people embracing it with its quick results to their obscure requests, and other people hesitant to participate and apprehensive of what this could mean for the future.

Microsoft founder Bill Gates wrote in a recent article ‘The Age of AI Has Begun’ when he witnessed the power of ChatGPT for himself “I knew I had just seen the most important advance in technology since the graphical user interface.” But he also highlighted people’s worries over the future of AI saying “Like most inventions, artificial intelligence can be used for good purposes or malign ones.” 

How Can AI Help Us With Google Ads?

When it comes to Google Ads, you’ll be no stranger to AI. As Google’s suite of automated tools to leverage their AI within their bidding strategies, dynamic ad formats and audience segments. It essentially takes all of the data that Google has gathered across its platforms and determines when is best to bid for users based on a range of factors like: time of day, search patterns, devices etc. 

These types of AI in Google ads have been around for a while now and you probably use a range of them in your campaigns already; with the most recent development in this being Performance Max campaigns. This is the most automated campaign type that Google has launched to date, as it uses Audience Signals rather than keywords to go after potential customers. This campaign type has yielded mixed reviews from marketers, with many people calling it the ‘Black Box’. That’s because although these campaigns seem to generate strong results, there is a lack of data insights that marketers can use to make informed decisions. But this is something that Google has assured they are working on to bring markets more access and information on how they’re Performance Max Campaigns are performing.

In terms of the future of Google Ads and AI, there are some significant developments in the pipeline that might either leave you feeling excited or apprehensive. For instance, Broad Match keywords will now leverage Google’s AI to go after search terms that are relevant to your keyword, even if they don’t contain any of the words in your broad match keyword. 

For instance, someone can search for “Where to find single people in London” and this can trigger an ad for a dating site that’s targeting single people in London when they are just using the broad match keyword Dating Website. 

So you can see that although the search term didn’t contain ‘dating’ or ‘website’ but using AI to analyse billions upon billions of language structures, Google has determined the relevance and intent of the search term to the keyword. 

Could we be seeing an age where keywords won’t be the main way to target audiences and instead we leverage more data, audience signals and AI to drive results?

What’s Happening With AI Now?

Although AI has taken significant steps in 2023, it’s still in its infant stages, with AI developers stressing that it’s still an experiment, with not everything it produces being 100% accurate.  

When it comes to Google Ads and AI, the headquarters of Google have stressed that AI is only as good as the marketers using it. Meaning that AI can leverage data, signals and information, but it can’t produce a strategy, analyse the data to make optimisations and ultimately know if it’s working or not. 

So there are definitely limitations to what AI is capable of, but even as it advances, developers all agree that AI is only as good as the human using it.

What Does AI Think Of The Impact Of AI?

I also went directly to the source and asked Bard how they would describe how AI is impacting the world right now, here is what they said:

Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly changing the world around us. From the way we shop to the way we get our news, AI is having a major impact on our lives.

The impact of AI on the world is still unfolding. However, it is clear that AI has the potential to revolutionise many aspects of our lives. As AI continues to develop, it is important to consider the potential benefits and risks of this technology. We need to ensure that AI is used for good and that it does not create new problems.

Here are some of the positive impacts of AI:

• AI can help us to solve some of the world’s most pressing problems, such as climate change and poverty.
• AI can make our lives easier and more efficient.
• AI can help us to learn and grow.
• AI can make us more creative and innovative.

Here are some of the potential risks of AI:

• AI could be used to create autonomous weapons that could kill without human intervention.
• AI could be used to create surveillance systems that could track our every move.
• AI could be used to manipulate our thoughts and emotions.
• AI could lead to mass unemployment as machines become capable of doing more and more jobs.

It is important to be aware of both the potential benefits and risks of AI as we move into the future. We need to ensure that AI is used for good and that it does not create new problems.

AI is an exciting development that can enhance our professional and everyday lives. But we need to remember it’s still in the very early stages of development and will still need humans to steer it in the direction that we need.