The pace of technology change is accelerating at a more rapid pace than ever before.
We are now seeing just a few years between each major advancement or industry revolution moment,
not hundreds or thousands of years. As global industry leaders we're always looking for
breakthrough moments or the next industry 5.0 advancement that will predict our future.
One of the things we believe that will contribute to this and be a game changer for us is in the
area of artificial intelligence or AI and virtual reality. AI has already evolved to the point where
machines have realised they're smarter than humans. In March 2016, the DeepMind AI technology being
developed by Google beat the best human player in Go. The move that changed everything was game two,
move 37. And why was that so interesting? It was a move that came not from machine learning but true
artificial intelligence. The model had been playing Go against itself, not from a feed of previous
human games. So during that period of self-learning it became better than any human player.
Was that a defining moment in human history and the advancement of artificial intelligence?
The question is what's next? What role will AI play in the human versus technology landscape? My name is
Richard Heeley and I'm the CIO of our Banking and Financial Services Group of Macquarie and I'm very
pleased to be joined today by Ian Edwards from Facebook, who will help us explore exactly that.
Ian is the Global Connection Planning Director at Facebook and has been with the company since 2015.
Prior to Facebook, Ian spent 14 years working in planning and strategy at some of the biggest
agencies in London. He's the contributing author to 'What is a 21st century brand?
New thinking from the next generation of agency leaders.' And he recently recorded a podcast series
for Marketing Week on where human creativity meets artificial intelligence in marketing.
And he's just released a podcast for Walk, a company that provides the latest evidence, expertise and
guidance to make marketeers more effective on the true value of attention. Welcome Ian.
Ian to begin, would you like to tell us a little bit about your role, about yourself and including
your role in Facebook. Yeah well, first of all great to be with you today and really excited
for the conversation. I guess some people might be wondering why does Facebook have a connection
planning team, which in some markets is called comms planning. The idea really is
that we recognise that Facebook is one part of your channel mix, your marketing mix.
And actually we have to understand how our channels and our ad products work alongside
other channels. So that's one part of it. But when I think about the specific role,
what I try and do and what the team tries and does is, is help advertisers and help businesses
navigate the future and navigate to have success on the platform. And I think about that
in two ways, one way is long-term view, so like a compass what's the direction of travel where are
we going over the next five, ten years and the areas you should double down on. And then kind of
providing a map - so what's the next turn you should make? What should you be doing in your planning now
to take you on that journey and make sure you don't go down any dead ends or off any, you know
drop off any, you know take that unfortunate turn that you want. So it's that kind of longer term
planning and then short-term execution, built on on insight, built on evidence that we try
to deliver for our partners. Obviously Facebook with 2.2 billion users, they get a personalised
news feed each day. It's an astonishing use of technology and AI. That's where you are
now, where are you headed? Yeah I mean actually you know, across the platforms it's actually over three
billion now, in terms of the user base. And what's really interesting,
is the fact that people want personalised content. Algorithmically driven
media overtook kind of traditional editorially driven media in 2020 in many markets and in the
UK but you know, we saw that transition happen for all audiences. So, you know that ability
to connect people with what they want to see and provide personalised experiences is critical.
I mean that's where we are at the platform, I mean the most interesting I mean there are many ways I
could take this but you know I think what we've seen over the last 12 months is a broadening
out of people using digital. So we've seen new audiences come into digital, come to our platform
to connect with people that matter to them but also to connect with businesses in new ways.
So it's in this breadth, but we've also seen this depth and I think that's what's really interesting
is you've got new audiences coming in and then you've got pretty much everyone learning new
digital skills and learning how to use technology
to connect and I think that's creating
interesting opportunities for us to serve businesses and communities better.
But it's also you know creating great moments of innovation for marketeers and
for advertisers to connect with their audiences in new and exciting ways. I mean, I'm sure we'll
get into this but you know some of the big things we've seen these huge spikes in messaging,
you know we've seen nearly a doubling in messaging - more than 120 billion messages sent
every day. A huge increase in messaging between people and businesses, a lot of that driven by AI.
We've seen the rise of augmented reality. Virtual reality, really I think having a
moment. We've also seen live, people going live from our platforms doubling.
Video conferencing, video calling, all of those experiences, all of that depth, I think is just
you know fantastic innovation that's creating new ways for people to
to connect with those that matter to them and connect also you know, obviously with businesses as well.
Thank you for that Ian because that leads nicely to a question I had for you around
augmented reality/virtual reality. So with the emergence of 5G and even 6G,
how will this drive the augmented and virtual reality technologies?
And what do you think these will look like? We believe this is one of those trends that is
is going to define the next 15 years. You know, we've invested in Facebook Reality Labs.
So you know, I think cutting edge people and engineers building what we think is
the future in this space. And I think just, you know, just to put this into perspective because
I do think sometimes people think AR/VR is it just a bit of a gimmick? Actually we
kind of think it's going to be the next computing platform. It's going to be that significant a
change. It's going to be a fundamentally different computing platform and will be the next computing
platform over the next 15 years. And you know, when when this really came home to me was
you know, some of our leaders talk about this as the next computer platform, what does that mean?
Well if you look back in history every, you know 15 years or so, roughly 15 years, there was a new
computing platform emerging. So if you go back to the 1950s, you know the big mainframe with
cards with holes punched into it and taking up the whole room - that's kind of the first generation.
Gradually you have then different generations that kind of come in, you get to home, you know PC's,
home PC's. Then, you know, kind of in 2000, late 90s, 2000s you have kind of the internet.
2010 - the smartphone. And then you know, we think kind of going forward, so you know 2010 the
smartphone, 15 years 2024/2025 - this technology will be the new platform and how we interact
with all of that technology. And you know, to understand that profound difference
and it may sound strange to us - is I think you would have to jump back two generations.
You know if you went to 1990 and brought someone, you know fast forward someone to today,
when they didn't have mobile phones and they were looking at smartphones and what we were
doing with smartphones and just walking around, you know getting onto a bus, getting
onto the Tube and seeing what we were doing with our phone, it would blow their minds. And I think
that's where we're going to get to with AR/VR but it's going to take time for us to realise that
future but I think over the next 15 years it's going to just, you know, transform the
way that we interact with each other, interact with the environment. And you know, through that
you know, that future might well be a future where we don't have a phone in the same way
that we do today. We don't physically have phones, which I think is one of those interesting things
that might come out of this.
Well let's talk a little about that Ian, a little more.
My history by the way, I was laughing when you mentioned the mainframe, I remember doing my first Fortran 77
program through sort of punch cards. It's just, it's strange to even think about. But as
we look forward, what do you think humans will like about that world that you've just described? How do
you think it will drive human behavior and what do you think they will perceive the risks to be?
I mean those are some big questions there. I mean, I think it's going to fundamentally, I think it's going
to just change every single aspect of our life. You know, I think it will, you know, it will change how
we work undoubtedly. You know, it will - you know one of the things is interesting, it will
physically, it will change our environment because of what we need around us. You know, we won't need a
computer screen or something like this because if you've got that future where you've got augmented
reality and you can just project onto your desk a virtual computer and you can type.
You don't need a tv sitting in the corner of your living room, you just can project and see exactly what that
will be. Obviously you know, the technology that I'll be talking through here will be
through wearables, so things like glasses that allow you to kind of do that in a seamless way.
It will change the nature of presence. It will change what it feels like to be with other people
through technology. It will feel much closer, so when you're separated as we are now by, you know,
half the globe, and it's good, You know I'm, you know, we feel connected here now but it will
actually feel like we're almost in the same room through this kind of technology. That distance
will bring us, you know, closer together and that's that's a very profound change. That will then
change where you can live. It will change how you socialise. It will change, you know. literally
everything I think. And you know, the benefits is that this technology will be very intuitive.
It'll be very linked to, you know, what do you need in that moment. It will be
very easy for you to control and manipulate your environment to suit you. you know and
And I think there will be huge benefits in that space. So, you know, I'm on the side
that this is going to be a positive change and technology, you know, as we've seen over the last
12 months - technology is a powerful way for us to connect with each other and that will just
you know, just change exponentially and the possibilities are incredibly exciting.
Already Ian we've seen that push back, though in some areas of society about being too
wedded to your device, which at the moment is a mobile phone. In the future, it will
we think it will be something different. What do you think in terms of that risk though,
for the human versus technology or the human technology interface? Have Facebook given any
thought to that to sort of that risk paradigm? Yeah I mean there's a couple of things to say there -
first of all time, you know, time spent when new technology comes along, you know, it's important
to have a balanced life. You shouldn't just do one thing of anything. I remember, you know, when I was
growing up, my parents were on at me the whole time about TV. You know, you're watching too much TV, it's
dominating, you know, what you're doing as a kid. That's that and mobile phones is essentially the
TV you know I whinge at my children about too much, you know, screen time and they need to have that
balance. And you know, at Facebook absolutely we believe that, you know, it's about
meaningful time and giving people control of how much time they spend on the platforms.
But also when they're on the platform, making sure that what they're doing is meaningful and you
know, obviously you know we changed the algorithm a couple of years ago to connect people with
the most meaningful content, rather you know, which was social, which was their friends, their
family - the things that people are interacting with and we think that's a much more positive
experience than just passive consumption. And that, you know, as we build these new technologies
the positive side is incredible but you still need that balance and we still need to educate
ourselves, our children, to provide that control to make sure that we're not, you know, it doesn't
become overbearing and dominating. But you know, but I think that's always
been the case with technology. A balanced life, balance in everything is important and you know,
with this technology we need that's nothing different. Ian in a conversation that we had
it was really exciting, your view of the future. I'm going to ask you a really tough question here and
obviously, people as they look into the future you never quite get it right but I'm interested
in your view. It's now 2035 and we've how has AI technology empowered people to innovate and
invest for a better future? Can you even sort of imagine how AI has developed in that time?
AI is obviously very different, you know AR and, augmented reality and virtual reality quite
different technology. You know AI is so broad it's like oxygen, you know, empowering life in a
way because oxygen, you know, life develops in many, many different ways and oxygen is a key
component for, you know, for that - for everything but the outcomes are so different. I think, I mean
AI you know, if you think about where we are today in terms of you know, the
kind of marketing landscape, where we are at the moment is kind of connecting people with
content, performance marketing, right message by people, right time, all of that kind of stuff.
You know and I know so I'm just sort of narrowing it down to one that, you know, a sphere.
I think the other bit that AI will fundamentally change next is going to be kind of like personal
assistance, customer assistance, helping people sort of connect to what they want that personalisation
you know, essentially connected to everything all of the time. What's the filter on that?
How do you start to connect with what is important to you? And I think, you know, AI will will help
solve a lot of the problems, you know, in that space. You know, based on your experience,
your preferences and things like that. It will just serve you a highly personalised experience
you know, in your life more generally. And the predictive power of that will you know,
just make lots of different parts of it much better. And then I do think that AI
you know, I think we talked a little bit about sort of transformational ideas. You know AI will solve
some of the biggest, you know, has the potential to solve some of the biggest problems that
we're facing. You know, whether that's, you know, in medicine and areas in that kind
of space and you know, diagnosis, better diagnosis of conditions, you know, all the way through
to you know, essentially, you know, education will be transferred - all of these different areas
will be, will have AI seamlessly embedded within them I think. And you know, that
idea of you know, that Alan Turing set out, you know, 70 years ago around a Turing test of
that experience of interacting with a machine, with a computer - does it feel human? I think, you know, in
certain narrow fields we'll pass that test. It won't be general AI but it will be, you know,
the tests around specific functions - it will feel like interacting with another human. So
yeah, it will be woven through all of our life I think, and you know, and have many, many implications
Ian if there's one industry trend that is more relevant today, what would that be?
I mean there's a lots of areas, obviously we've covered AR/VR and I think there's
there's lots to come in that space. You know, I think, you know, this area around
assistance and messaging I think is really interesting and I think, you know, messaging not
not Messenger or Whatsapp, are you know, a dominant way that people want to connect with
people and they want to connect with businesses. And, you know, I think that area for tech and
AI I think you need to have a messaging strategy going forward, whatever kind of business you're in.
If you don't have a team dedicated to messaging, looking at automation, looking at, you know, some
of the the AI functioning capabilities, I think you're going to get left behind. You know we've
just launched payments on Whatsapp in India and Brazil, that will continue. If you look to the east,
or east from where I am, you know, what's happening there in terms of the
you know, that how messaging is so integral and weaved through people's lives.
I think that's one area where I think there should be really, you know, deep focus.
And a number of people said to me now I've tried, you know, chatbots, so I've tried messaging, messenger
for my business it doesn't work for me. And that's because you know, you haven't
quite got it right. That is the equivalent of in 1999 saying I've tried these website things
you know, it's just not for my business. It's that significant a moment that, you know, I think
messaging is becoming its own medium and people need to really you know dig in and understand
how to use that. So that for me is like a really interesting significant area which
sometimes - it felt like we've had a couple of false starts but I think, you know,
through what's happened over the last 12 months, that's at the heart of what we kind of need to do -
what businesses should be really leaning into. That's great Ian, thank you very much and thank
you for joining us today. As we draw a close on our discussion I want to thank Ian and Facebook for an
engaging discussion and his amazing insights on what our future may hold in the AI space.
I hope you found it as fascinating as I did. I believe we're moving through a period of
technology that's accelerated through the use of powerful, highly available and cheap
technology provided by the cloud companies. I hope today has interested you enough
for you to start your own investigational project on where the future may lead us.