AI Is ‘Not a Threat but an Opportunity,’ Says Meta EMEA Global Partnerships Head: ‘We Should Be Cautious of Either Deifying or Fearing It’
Louise Holmes, director of global partnerships for Meta EMEA, underlined during a keynote presentation at Content London on Wednesday that artificial intelligence should not be seen as a threat to creativity.
“We should be cautious of either deifying it or fearing it,” she said. “After all, the things we fear most are often those we understand least. Personally, I see AI not as a threat but as an opportunity.”
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At Meta, Holmes’ team supports EMEA’s most influential creators, public figures, media companies, film studios and more in building their businesses and creating an impact on Facebook, Instagram and more. Before joining Meta, Holmes was VP general of Paramount, Comedy Central and MTV Networks at Viacom CBS U.K., where she helped to bolster its young audiences.
Holmes underlined the ways AI can be an aide to creative fields, including democratizing and increasing productivity, improving efficiency, enhancing global content distribution and creating more sophisticated insights into content performance. Generative AI will “supercharge creativity, but importantly not replace it,” Holmes said, adding that she doesn’t foresee AI being able to predict the next big “hit” in the content space because “the most successful ideas are a punt on something bold and left-field.”
“To be clear, despite its potential, here creativity trumps AI every time,” she said. “Storytelling, our first-born extinct, will endure and so will the appeal of real lives with all their messiness, imperfections and authenticity.”
Holmes then delved into Meta’s roadmap when it comes to AI, sharing that the company’s mission is to “build the future of human connection and the technology that makes it possible.” Meta’s AI assistant is on track to being the most-used AI assistant in the world by the end of this year, Holmes said, with 500 million people using it. Building upon Meta and Ray-Ban’s smart glasses, Holmes said they will be releasing the Orion glasses, the world’s first augmented-reality glasses, and are working to build AI “twin” avatars that can help creators manage daily tasks including responding to DMs.
Other upcoming ventures include a feature that can give dating advice, which Holmes said was inspired by “Love Is Blind,” and Meta’s MovieGen prototype, which they are working on with Blumhouse and hope to integrate next year.
“Don’t be afraid of AI,” she said. “Make a point of understanding it, embrace it, experiment and make it work for you.”
She concluded: “Maybe next year, our future AI twins will be sitting here instead of us whilst we’re using our time in even more valuable ways.”
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