Rubbish in, rubbish out: AI’s no silver bullet for brand differentiation

It’s hard not to be impressed by generative language models like ChatGPT, when you use them for the first time.  Feed it the broadest of prompts, and in seconds you’re rewarded with hundreds of words of eloquent, grammatically sound, if slightly insipid, copy.  On the face of things, ChatGPT and its ilk look genuinely disruptive for marketing.

Who can you turn to when there is nowhere left to go?

By Mark Lunn, founder, Caburn Communications

When I tell friends I’ve been working with a new lender for three years on market entry into the High Cost Short Term Credit market, they pull a face of disgust and say, “eeew, you’re helping a payday lender like Wonga… how do you live with yourself, they charge immoral amounts of interest”.

With Twitter under Elon Musk’s control, social media just got interesting again

At last, Elon Musk has acquired Twitter, beating a deadline imposed by a Delaware judge by just a few hours.   The “Chief Twit” joins his contemporary Jeff Bezos in the pantheon of 21st century media barons.

Now the deal is done, there’s considerable pressure to right the ship.  

Hey.  We’re the future again.

In his final prime minister’s questions, David Cameron famously observed that he had been the future once.  Then he was out.  Well, PM Sunak’s first cabinet shows that past performance is not necessarily an indication of future results. 

His cabinet is characterised by recalls from the Cameron, May, Johnson and even Truss eras.  A cabinet of all the talents, internal constituencies or conflicting factions…

The autumn budget: three reasons for caution

Was this week’s budget the work of a skilled Chancellor or a lucky one?

In truth, it was neither.  As those more fluent in the machinations of party politics will recognise, it was the budget of a Chancellor who is desperate to be Prime Minister.

Company cultures are running on fumes: should we return to the office?

By Guy Corbet, Fourteen Forty

We’ve learned an awful lot about working from home.  It has given many people the freedom to combine work with more family time.  It has been the miracle that has kept the economy spluttering on through the lockdowns.   

Many now don’t want to go back to the old normal drudgery of commuting to the office. 

In the cold light of day, and in the long run, will that position really be possible to maintain?  And are we seeing that company cultures are already running on fumes? 

Five 2021 predictions to ignore (or at least take with a pinch of salt)

By Gareth Streeter, Fourteen Forty

Writers of “2021 predictions” lists have indulged the temptation to be both dramatic and definitive.  And they all follow one clear narrative.  Covid will depart.  It will leave behind it a world that is forever changed.

But does the available evidence bear this out?  Or have some of our would-be futurologists over-egged the pudding?