Artificial Intelligence is one of those wide terms that covers an enormous amount of activity, from natural language consumer-to-machine conversation (think Alexa and Siri) through to robotics, automation, algorithms and machine learning.  The AI machine has buried its way into your everyday already. Just look at how our lives are influenced by the algorithms and machine learning all around us.

Netflix tells you what programmes you should watch, Spotify what songs and artists to listen to. Linked-In tells you where you should work and Amazon tells you what you should buy. Trust me, without knowing we have already handed over a good share of our decision making to the machines. ‘People like you also bought’ and ‘Recommended for You’ is AI whispering in our ear, selling us what it knows we like.

At some point along the path-to-purchase there is a real live consumer who makes a decision. As such they are open to influence. Using clever marketing techniques, an understanding of behavioural economics or consumer psychology, we manipulate and bend a consumer to consider and buy whatever we are selling. But what happens when there is no consumer involved? When we trust the algorithms and AI systems as much as we trust the payment systems we have built. When we hand over our purchase decision making to the machine. What then for consumerism and for marketing?

This speech looks at where we have come from, where we are and where it could all be going.  AI isn’t about the machines. It is about how we keep our influence and consumer communications as the algorithms and robots step in.