Shapes of things before my eyes?

 

The picture above is from Page 48 of the Capgemini Research Institute report “From Complexity to Clarity: How CMOs can reclaim marketing to build competitive edge.”

This is a glimpse into the not-too distant future, an illustration of what Web 4.0 aka symbiotic web or intelligent web might mean for the retail experience (if we have to call it that.) In case you’re wondering, the definition of Web 4.0 in the reference section of the report is:

an emerging concept that envisions seamless collaboration between humans and AI agents, as well as between AI agents and AI agents. The interactions become real time, context aware, connects the digital and physical worlds, becomes context-aware and ubiquitous. (sic)

Now, far be it from me to be all unseamless and frictional and suggest this definition is just a touch complex and repetitive to boot, but there we go.

I’ve got a number of questions.

How can an “interaction” become aware of context or anything else? Are these AI agents sentient beings?

Where is the brand in all this? I’m a runner, too and have been known to jog in my jaunty way into a sports shop. At the moment, I’m off Nike for what some would argue are childish reasons. But let me have my fun. I’m quite keen on Asics as they’ve been good shoes in the past. But I’m also open to Adidas as - rightly or wrongly - I feel that they’re local and I kind of feel emotionally attached to them. Especially as I had an Adidas sports bag to carry my school books which I now think was the epitome of cool.

Does this only work when you have let every single scrap of your data be harvested - health, sport, purchases? Does it only work when the human customer is assessed like a performance machine?

And what happens when the customer is having a crap day and the AI agent’s voice sounds just like his ex-wife’s and he’s in a subversive mood?

I’ll put together a more grown-up discussion of where I think these “Future of Marketing” reports are missing a trick at a later stage. 

But for now, I'm looking forward to this:

 A jolly piece of brand content from days of yore