There’s a reason why 2024 was named the year “AI at work gets real.”
This statement was made in the 2024 Work Trend Index Annual Report from LinkedIn and Microsoft, which revealed that the use of AI in the workplace has grown quickly. Out of the workers surveyed, 75 percent said they use AI in their jobs, with 46 percent sharing that they only started doing so less than six months ago.
The survey also showed that workers wish they had better AI skills, feeling as though they need these skills for continued employment. Considering 66 percent of leaders surveyed said they wouldn’t hire someone without AI skills, it seems as though these workers may be onto something.
Given this rising demand for AI skills, it’s important for companies to offer employees ample opportunities to leverage the technology.
This is easily done when a company’s core product is rooted in AI, as is the case for Smartly. The company’s AI-powered adtech platform enables brands to connect more closely with consumers, integrating media, creative and intelligence capabilities.
According to Chief Product Officer of AI Applications Arto Tolonen, the company has been investing in AI for the past decade and has continued to reap the benefits of the technology over time. As a result, employees have access to projects and resources that can help enhance their current understanding of the evolving technology.
“As AI continues to power digital advertising, opportunities for learning and growth in this space will only expand,” Tolonen said. “Going forward, we will ensure that, as AI continues to evolve, so do the capabilities of our teams.”
Below, Tolonen shares more about Smartly’s relationship with AI and how this connection enables employees to become AI experts themselves.
Describe Smartly’s relationship with AI. What’s the user value in the AI in your product, and what makes this unique?
Smartly is an AI-powered adtech company with a mission to transform the advertising experience for brands and consumers. Our advertising platform combines media, creative and intelligence, offering end-to-end workflows powered by AI across the open and closed web.
We have been investing in AI solutions for the past decade, deeply integrating AI across our product offering. We use AI for media optimization to enhance our customers’ advertising performance. This includes predictive budget allocation, which leverages real-time data to dynamically adjust strategies and maximize budget efficiency. We also use AI for creative optimization, combining dynamic creative optimization with creative intelligence. This allows customers to test ad creatives at scale and easily refine them based on audience preferences.
What sets us apart is our ability to connect creative and media optimization in a unique way. Our AI can improve creatives at scale based on real-time performance metrics, helping customers optimize ad spend and continuously iterate to build the best possible creatives tailored to each specific audience.
Tell the story of how AI has evolved at Smartly. What was life like for customers before it was used, and what are your product teammates excited about when it comes to the future of AI at Smartly?
At Smartly, our journey with AI began with more traditional machine learning, as we developed automatic optimization capabilities for large-scale advertisers. Before AI, our customers had to optimize their advertising strategies manually, which was not only time-consuming, but also made it nearly impossible to achieve the same level of performance gains.
As the AI landscape evolved and expanded, so did we. Although generative AI has been trending only recently, we made strategic investments in Gen AI before it gained popularity. For example, we acquired a Silicon Valley startup that has been a part of our AI journey.
With AI at Smartly’s core, it’s no surprise that we have a large number of advanced customers already successfully using Gen AI to enhance ad creatives and optimize marketing workflows. In addition to our top-performing early adopters, another significant portion of our customer base has begun testing and integrating Gen AI into their processes. While leveraging Gen AI with Smartly continues to grow rapidly, we know there’s still untapped potential that we’re excited to unlock.
“While leveraging Gen AI with Smartly continues to grow rapidly, we know there’s still untapped potential that we’re excited to unlock.”
What opportunities do Smartly employees have to advance their AI careers?
Since AI is central to everything we do, all of our employees should have a solid understanding of the AI capabilities we offer. That’s why we provide subject matter expert programs that allow those who are in customer-facing roles to become experts in our AI solutions and how they can address customer challenges. SME programs enable hands-on learning and engaging in deep AI discussions with customers.
Technical roles offer great opportunities to collaborate closely with AI, particularly within our data science and engineering teams. Our data scientists focus on experimentation and new AI models, while engineers work on incorporating these AI advancements into their own product areas. This means engineers, designers and product managers get to work hands-on with AI technologies, collaborating on cutting-edge projects that shape the future of digital advertising.
