- General Mills is broadening its efforts to detect misinformation online amid heightened concerns across the impact of generative artificial intelligence (AI), in response to news shared with Marketing Dive.
- The packaged foods marketer and agency partner Mindshare have been testing Zefr’s AI-powered Atrium and are actually seeking to apply it to more campaigns. The engine is positioned as more sophisticated than typically text-based brand safety solutions, factoring in audio and frame-by-frame video evaluation, together with a scaled human review and moderation process.
- Zefr focuses on platforms like TikTok, YouTube and Meta Platforms, indicating the areas where General Mills may very well be on higher alert for misinformation. The downsides of generative AI have come into focus as more users and types adopt the nascent technology, though excitement over the sector has yet to chill.
General Mills is putting up more safeguards as generative AI takes the web by storm and raises serious questions around media ethics and accuracy.
Generative AI software like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and DALL-E have been praised for his or her ability to quickly create life-like conversations and pictures and attracted serious brand buy-in. But as the technology is trained on recent information over time, discerning what’s real from fabricated may very well be more of a challenge, as evidenced by recent controversies over AI-generated articles and viral images. That’s an issue for companies which have already struggled to make sure brand safety and suitability during a period where “fake news” is common parlance.
“With the era of AI bringing more complex challenges to the media landscape, we’re maintaining our high standards by investing in technical solutions that drive positive and lasting industrywide change at scale,” said Doug Martin, chief brand and disruptive growth officer at General Mills, in a press statement. Martin, an organization vet, was promoted to the expanded role in late 2021 after previously serving as General Mill’s disruptive growth officer.
General Mills and Mindshare first piloted Zefr’s Atrium product with a Yoplait campaign in January, and are planning to roll out the combination across more brands within the marketer’s portfolio this month. A partnership with Zefr dates back to 2015, when the firm was tapped for its brand safety and contextual targeting technology.
Zefr promotes itself as a brand suitability provider on scaled walled garden platforms like YouTube and TikTok, underpinning how the misinformation fight has prolonged to more complex channels like video and audio that might be harder to investigate than text. Zefr adheres to the Global Alliance of Responsible Media Framework for Brand Safety and Suitability.
Along with a human-assisted review process, Atrium touts integrations with over 50 global fact-checking organizations. That helps train its engine to discover and label red-flag topics like conspiracy theories, pseudo-science and divisive political discourse at a quick pace, the announcement said.
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