Adobe Firefly’s big mistake, Iterable’s new study & my favorite tool

4 things on my mind this week

Read Time: 3 minutes

Today At A Glance:

• New study: Using AI in marketing jobs
• Optimization vs generative AI
• Adobe’s Firefly AI image generator made a BIG ethical mistake
• My favorite AI tool at the moment

New Study: Using AI in Marketing Jobs

According to ​a new study​ from customer experience platform Iterable, research firm Wakefield Research, and media company Ad Age, 91% of marketers are already using AI in their jobs.

Furthermore, 62% of marketers are using AI both for their job and outside their job.

While those are big numbers, I’m a bit skeptical. There’s a huge difference between integrating AI into your workflows to fully automate processes and using ChatGPT once a week to brainstorm ideas.

But if you’re interested in being a part of the 91% of marketers using AI in their jobs, I’m diving into 5 tips in our Friday newsletter that can get you there. Stay tuned!

– Ashley Kramer, Chief Marketing & Strategy Officer at GitLab

Optimization vs Generative AI

In that same Iterable study, marketers were asked which type of AI would make your jobs easier:

• Optimization – e.g., automatically recommending improvements
• Automation – e.g., machines automatically doing tasks without intervention
• Predictive – e.g., segment most likely to convert
• Generative – e.g., content creation

57% of respondents said they would pick optimization over any of the others, with Generative AI at 49% of respondents.

It’s interesting because what people are actually using AI for isn’t always the area we hope AI can optimize.

Adobe’s Firefly Trained On AI Competitors

Bloomberg reported recently that Adobe’s AI image generator Firefly included AI images generated by its competitors, including Midjourney, DALL•E 3, and Stable Diffusion, as well as Adobe Stock images.

This is problematic for two reasons:

1. Adobe claimed it was “Commercial Safe”, unlike Midjourney
2. It brings Firefly’s ethicality into question, wondering whether or not other AI models and artists were compensated by Adobe for their inputs

According to Adobe, only 5% of the AI-generated images used to train Firefly came from AI images created by other platforms. But according to Bloomberg, 14% (or 57 million) of Adobe Stock’s images are labeled AI-generated. 🤷‍♂️

My Current Favorite AI Tool: Cuppa

​Cuppa uses AI to help marketers build optimized content in minutes with a choice of API keys and OpenAI models. Plus, it does it at the same cost as OpenAI without the upcharge of other tools.

Here’s the feature I’ve been using most: you can rewrite your content with AI by simply adding a URL using the OpenAI API and then connecting to Zapier. An optimized Alec is a happy Alec. 🤗

That’s it for today! I’ll be back in your inbox on Friday with 5 ideas to help you get in the 91% of marketers who use AI (just like in Iterable’s study).