Can Marketing Save the Planet? Episode 97: Sustainability and AI - Friends or Foes? with tech futurist, Dan Södergren and sustainability pro, Russ Avery
“The more people bring AI in-house the better it will be for the environment”…
“You’ve got to spend the money to take advantage of the opportunity – and you can say but AI is free, but it isn't - that's just bad AI”…
“AI allows us to do the art of marketing without marketing” …
A slightly longer episode this week, but boy is it an interesting one! In this episode of Can Marketing Save the Planet we bring together two of the biggest conversations in the world today; AI and sustainability to find out if they are friend or foe. Joined by tech futurist Dan Södergren and sustainability guy, Russ Avery, we discuss questions around, is business and society responsible enough to use AI? Why AI policies a must for organisations - and, how can Marketers use AI in an informed and meaningful way?
As with any big subject matter we jump straight into the challenges and opportunities. When it comes to challenges we of course go straight to the environmental impact where Russ explains, “AI -driven data centers are projected to consume 90 terawatt hours annually by 2026, which will be a 10 -fold increase from 2022 levels, which is only three years ago. And for context, that's equivalent to the energy uses of some entire countries.” Only part of the story - but something we should all be aware of as we all look to AI and how it will increasingly become more prevalent in our lives.
Dan agrees that energy is definitely something we need to be aware of, but more importantly, “it's more the fact of what you do with it. En-masse if you just take it out by itself and you add it on to the marketing you're doing, then yes, by its very nature, you're going to be creating more problems because you are going to be using more energy. But on the whole, he believes AI can make the world a better place (caveat - if the good guys use it). The ‘fifth industrial revolution’ also comes up a lot in this conversation, but you’ll need to tune in to find out more.
We talk about the need for more education, upskilling and awareness. Training is another area that we keep coming back to. Russ talks about the need for education and using AI responsibly, “we should not be using AI for socially useless mundane purposes’ – Take note Marketers! Dan agrees that education and understanding is critical if we want to be more productive and less wasteful. Both share hints, tips and ways we (Marketers) can all be using AI more effectively.
Russ believes that Marketers can use AI effectively if they “lean into their curiosity and understand the foundations of what you are using”, he goes on to explain, “I would just encourage Marketers to learn about the fundamentals of AI because it can only benefit your understanding how these things work and how they actually came about”.
Dan talks about the need for better prompt engineering, an understanding of language models and, the need for culture change, moving away from specialisation and IP to considering, “how does your organisation incentivise not just the use of AI, but actually incentivise the best practice use of AI? Say I've created a great prompt, what's in it for me to share that knowledge with the rest of the team? Now, that's something we've never really had.”
There is simply too much in this episode to summarise here in a way that does it justice, you’ll just need to tune in and get your pens and pads ready….and then click on the links in the show notes to take advantage of the offers from Dan…we certainly will be.
Tune in and listen as we talk to Dan and Russ about:
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The challenges and opportunities around AI
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The ethics and dilemma - Humans vs AI in the workplace
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Data with intelligence can help us do all the things we’ve been talking about for 20 years
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The need to train and upskill your employees
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The purpose of organisations and business
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The green tech revolution
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The need to understand how we use AI
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What skills and knowledge marketers need to have to use AI effectively
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The need for organisations to have AI policies
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Small language models vs. large language model and the benefits that can come from that for organisations
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How marketers, agencies, organisations can use AI in the RIGHT way
A truly informative and thought provoking episode. Tune in, enjoy it, share it - and of course, share your comments.
For all the links / offers Dan shares:
The AI Marketing Course
https://www.letslevelup.app/course/TheAIMarketingCourse
200 off: AIMarketing200OFF
The Prompt Engineering Course
https://www.letslevelup.app/course/PromptEngineering
To access Dan’s books visit Dan Sodergren #FutureOfWork use the code TRAININGTHANKYOU and get any one book downloadable for free.
Books here:
How to effectively use AI to market your business in one day a month
THE NEW INTELLIGENCE The 5th Industrial Revolution
And free to download at www.aileadershipcourse.com
And here is an audio version for free if you would like that…
The Free First Chapter Of “How to Thrive and Survive in 2025” A #leader’s guide to the times of #ai.
You’ll find Dan on LinkedIn here
You’ll find Russ on LinkedIn here
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