The promise and threat of AI, as understood through the eyes of Possible

Here are a few of the discussions Digiday’s editors teased out of the guests that swung by.

Fern Potter, the chief strategy and growth officer at curation firm Multilocal, explains the forces that led curation to take off in the last 18 months, from deal management to automation and algorithmic influence. She also shared how AI is helping to “tidy up our house” with data and its impact on discoverability.

Crossmedia co-founder and CEO Kamran Asghar, who’s attended three out of four Possibles, asked what is actually possible in the industry as business models have changed. He also championed the agility and speed of independent agencies — “We’re not tied to legacies” — and neutrality that he implied have been lost by holding companies. Asghar also explained why he believes marketers are continuing to spend despite uncertain economic times, having a lot to do with flexibility in the marketplace. “Media is like a river,” he said.

Nielsen’s first-ever chief client officer, Peter Naylor, who also happens to be a four-time Possible veteran, explained his role at the research giant, which is to “open the aperture” of perceptions. One change he wants the industry to understand is that Nielsen is now getting into the predictions business with its predictive sales lift product — a tool that helps with short-term marketing efforts like movie campaigns. When it comes to AI, he quipped that Nielsen helps to put the “L” in LLM in that Nielsen deals with “large” terabytes of data every day.

Stay tuned for more interviews from the Digiday studio at Possible.