AI-driven Personalized Advertising Raises Ethical and Privacy Concerns
Cheil UK and Spotlight are employing large language models to infer personality traits from individuals' online activity and tailor advertising content accordingly. This personalization includes adjusting the tone, pace, music, and colors of ads based on data pulled from public social media posts, search history, and user inputs into systems like ChatGPT.
This approach targets individuals on a large scale, creating millions of unique advertisements that reflect each person's digital footprint rather than focusing on broad demographic groups. Advertisers aim to reduce digital ad wastage, which is estimated to be around 15% of spending that goes unseen, by making ads more relevant to each viewer.
A US study has found that personalized AI-generated ad text can be more persuasive; however, the practice of creative personalization remains in its early stages. Many brands across various sectors have already adopted AI-enhanced, personality-driven advertising techniques.
Despite these advances, critics have raised concerns about privacy, surveillance, and the risk of generating "creepy slop"—content that reveals intimate personal details. They question whether it is appropriate for brands to personalize advertising to such an extent. Key ethical and regulatory questions involve the appropriateness of personalization and its implications for elections and political persuasion.
Industry voices emphasize caution: Chris Camacho of Cheil UK stresses the ethical use of AI to avoid manipulation, Alex Calder of Jagged Edge warns against over-personalization, and Ivan Mato highlights the need to consider consumer acceptance and regulatory oversight.
