We Are Social’s Simon Kemp + Suzie Shaw present at sold-out session at Vivid Ideas

Algorithms are more predictable than consumer behaviour and Google knows more than Santa Claus, according to digital marketer and We Are Social global consultant, Simon Kemp.

Kemp was presenting at a sold-out session at the Vivid Ideas Exchange in Sydney today with We Are Social’s Australian managing director, Suzie Shaw. Marketing To The Machines: Why Algorithms Will Define The Future Of Everything was part of Vivid Sydney – the world’s largest festival of light, music and ideas – and gave the audience a few tips on dealing with all-pervasive algorithms.

Kemp recommended treating algorithms as “just another audience; the good news is that you don’t need to become an expert in algorithms. You just need to become an expert in identifying and selecting the experts.”

In their presentation, Kemp and Shaw said the increasing reliance on algorithms had massive implications for marketing.

“Future business success will depend on how well we can influence algorithms. This has already started, but it’s about to take off in a much bigger way.”

Kemp and Shaw used the example of voice-controlled shopping devices choosing brands for shoppers, based on a variety of algorithmic inputs. They spoke about Facebook “likes” resulting in Facebook knowing us as well as we know ourselves, but then said that Google’s reach went well beyond likes.

Says Kemp: “Google knows more than Santa Claus: everything we know, everywhere we go, everyone we meet, our health and vitality and what we’ll do next.”

Moving onto artificial intelligence and machine learning, they spoke about how algorithms can write their own algorithms without human intervention. They said that one of the next big things would be artificial empathy, because as a large part of empathy is learned, it can also be encoded.