Soon, Facebook will know more about you than you know about yourself.
Imagine seeing an advertisement for $2 tacos…before your stomach had even growled yet. Through the AI that Facebook is building to help understand everything that you post, this is going to be commonplace.
So, is Facebook becoming Skynet?
(a little shout out to all you Terminator fans)
No, of course not. Although the phrase “Artificial Intelligence” usually inspires some factions of the population to warn against the terrors of a worldwide artificial intelligence network, that representation of AI is fundamentally flawed. Sentient robots with nefarious intentions are fortunately not what Facebook has in mind.
Instead, Facebook is trying to really understand what its users are saying. Using neural networks and deep learning, the technology will use the millions of messages posted each day to learn how to mimic human brain activity. This will help Facebook to understand the meaning behind messages posted instead of just organizing them by keywords.
What no one is talking about is how this applies to advertising. An even bigger discussion is how we can couple AI with Big Data to deliver the best possible experience for users. Big Data is dark to us, and AI is the switch that turns on the light.
No human analyst can process the amount of data that we have access to fast enough. AI is fueling the future of Big Data. The new challenge will be the amount of creative output needed to talk to our new structured audiences.
Imagine driving in your car past a diner and you hear a familiar voice coming from your phone. Like an old friend, Siri will remind you of the time you ordered that omelet with your friend Steve and that it has been awhile since you’ve been back.
If Facebook’s AI works – and I’m sure they’ll figure it out – the specificity with which you will be able to target consumers is enough to make any digital media buyer drool. By truly understanding the unfiltered messages that users post daily, coupled with already advanced targeting options, you can be near certain that the eyeballs you are grabbing are the right ones.
Only Facebook would know: Tuesdays are taco days for me.