In the service industry, the use of generative AI holds great promise, but it’s also generating fear. Authors, actors and other creatives are concerned their copyrighted works are being used without permission—and putting them out of a job.
From AI-powered content creation to data-driven marketing strategies, a panel at ALL IN examined how AI technologies are shaping the service industry, including marketing, entertainment and consulting.
For example, Waverly is building healthier social networks using conversational AI. The content platform for professionals uses natural language understanding (NLU) technology that allows users to track the industries and trends that matter most to them—not just what’s popular.
“We have a very important guideline,” said Philippe Beaudoin, co-founder of Waverly. “It’s basically saying generative AI is super powerful. We need to make sure that it never steals the agency of the person. You always feel like you are the creator of the piece—you are using a creative process in order to get to some place that you want to get to.”
That means asking users how they feel about what they’ve created and if they’re proud to put their name on it. “I think it’s a pretty good measure of how we can use AI in order to empower people,” he said, “instead of saying hey, let’s just use it to throw more things that people don’t care about out there.”
However, private entities may be more willing to take risks than public entities.
Sharethrough has developed an ad platform that maximizes user attention through research-backed ad enhancements while curating inventory.
But when it comes to generative AI, it’s still a Wild West out there. “The rules are gray,” said Jean-Francois Côté, president and CEO of Sharethrough. “AI is the next thing, it will be defined over time, but you need to take risks.”
For a public broadcaster like CBC/Radio Canada, the use of generative AI requires finding a balance between better serving Canadians while also being fully transparent.
It’s about helping creators, rather than hurting them, said Maxime St-Pierre, executive director of digital services for CBC/Radio-Canada.
“As a Crown corporation, sometimes people think that we’ve never even touched AI, but we’ve been doing AI for many years now,” he said. “We started really early … because we know that we will need to tackle some very difficult questions.”
