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As artificial intelligence advances, it is reshaping the landscape of online advertising in remarkable ways. Imagine you’re browsing social media one evening, and suddenly, the ads you see are customized to an uncanny degree. The colors, music, and even the language of the advertisements seem tailored specifically to your personality and tastes. This degree of personalization is becoming achievable thanks to AI technologies now in use by companies such as Cheil UK in collaboration with the startup Spotlight. By leveraging large language AI models, these firms analyze online behavior to create ads that mirror an individual’s tone, style, and preferences, whether that means matching extroversion versus introversion or favoring certain colors and music genres.
Various industries, including retail, automotive, insurance, banking, and consumer electronics, have adopted AI-driven approaches to connect with consumers more personally. The AI systems scan data from public social media posts, search histories, and inputs into platforms like ChatGPT to construct detailed personality profiles. This information is then combined with usual demographic data—such as location, age, family status, hobbies, holiday habits, and fashion choices—that advertisers typically gather through platforms like Facebook or Google. This fusion of data explains why products or vacations you recently searched for continue to appear repeatedly as targeted ads during your internet sessions.
Unlike traditional ads directed at broad demographic groups, AI-enabled advertising targets individual users by adapting the ad’s text, imagery, tone, and sound dynamically based on psychological cues detected from online activity. Cheil UK CEO Chris Camacho explains, “The shift is that we are moving away from what was collected data based on gender and age, and readily available information, to now, going more into a deeper emotional, psychological level.” He further elaborates that AI now has the capability to explore a person’s entire digital footprint to understand their mood or personal circumstances with much greater depth than before.
Despite these innovations, experts raise concerns about the approach of extreme personalization. Alex Calder, chief consultant at AI consultancy Jagged Edge, warns against the potential pitfalls: “Congratulations – your AI just spent a fortune creating an ad only one person will ever see, and they’ve already forgotten it.” He argues that the future lies in enhancing broadly relevant, impactful ideas rather than producing a flood of one-to-one ads that may feel invasive or “creepy.” Ivan Mato of Elmwood highlights the ethical and regulatory questions around such data use, noting “There’s also the surveillance question. All of it depends on a data economy that many consumers are increasingly uncomfortable with.” While AI opens vast creative opportunities, the challenge remains whether brands should fully embrace personalizing every interaction or risk alienating customers through excessive intrusiveness.
Chris Camacho also acknowledges the darker possibilities that AI-powered advertising could entail, warning about how some may exploit this technology unethically. “There’s going to be the camp that uses AI well and in an ethical manner, and then there’s going to be those that use it to persuade, influence, and guide people down paths,” he explains, citing concerns about elections and political canvassing. Nonetheless, he emphasizes his firm’s commitment to ethical use, stating, “We don’t have to use AI to make ads creepy or to influence individuals to do things that are unethical. We’re trying to stay on the nicer side of it.” The goal remains to strengthen the connection between brands and individuals, without crossing ethical boundaries
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