Storyboard18’s editor Delshad Irani spoke to Raja Rajamannar, chief marketing and communications officer and president – healthcare business at Mastercard, at the Mastercard villa at Cannes Lions 2023, on the impact of artificial intelligence (AI), especially generative AI, and how marketing is on the path to disruptive change.
Rajamannar, who has been a huge proponent of getting on the technology bandwagon and has written a book on it with an entire chapter on AI, says traditional AI has been on the market for at least seven to eight years. Mastercard, for example, has developed lots of capabilities, including digital marketing initiatives in Singapore that led to four- to eight-fold improvements and reduced the response time for Request For Proposals (RFPs) from seven weeks to four hours.
AI is changing the advertising and marketing chain. There will be a new breed of marketers who do not exist today, and serious thought needs to be given to people who are trained only in traditional marketing.
“About 40–60 percent of marketing production dollars can easily be cut down through Gen AI. Speed to market will multiply manifold, and marketing will become more and more structured,” according to Rajamannar.
On the other hand, there would be intellectual property (IP) and ethical issues. “If the engine has been trained with data that doesn’t belong to you, then it is infringement,” he pointed out. As the custodian of a global brand, Rajamannar feels AI is not artificial intelligence but augmented intelligence, and it is not a machine independent of people but a machine creating output that one can work with and take to a different level.
Rajamannar also sheds light on how marketers are guilty of providing poor briefs to agencies, but now with generative AI, marketers can articulate the brief with more clarity and ask agencies to create magic from there on.
Rajamannar also puts forward the fact that Gen AI leads to multiple complexities. “Everything can be faked. One can create synthetic and metahumans, and it is impossible to differentiate reality.”
On India leveraging technology and defining the path forward, Rajamannar said, “India is blessed with youthful talent. Indians are wicked smart and ahead of the game. As a country, India has a phenomenal opportunity ahead of it not only in creating solutions but also in healthcare, including mental health and ed-tech by making kids experience AI-enabled learning.”
Watch out for the full conversation on CNBC-TV18.