President of Ryan Reynolds' Advertising Company MNTN Explains Its New Avenue To Success

Almost from the moment ChatGPT went live last year, artificial intelligence has become a dominating presence and a disruptive force. 

The term "AI" was mentioned in first-quarter earnings calls by 110 of the companies in the S&P 500 index and was said more than 168 times on the earnings calls of just four tech giants (Meta, Alphabet, Microsoft and Amazon). The major stock indices, bolstered by investor excitement over the technology, experienced growth throughout 2023 that was propelled by a small group of tech companies working on developing the technology. 

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Mixed into this bullish outlook on AI came experts with concerns over the current harms presented by the technology, in addition to its potential future risks. A report found that 4,000 people lost their jobs due to AI in the month of May alone.

But for many -- including TV advertising software company MNTN (whose Chief Creative Officer is "Deadpool" actor Ryan Reynolds) -- artificial intelligence represents a big opportunity. 

The company, named one of Fast Company's most innovative advertising firms of 2023, announced a new video editing platform called "VIVA" June 15, an editing environment that will come loaded with a variety of generative AI tools. The platform, designed to make it easy to create scripts, visuals, music and voiceovers, will launch later this year. 

"This is not the first time lowering the cost of building creative is occurring, it's been occurring for decades with Photoshop and digital cameras," MNTN's President and CEO, Mark Douglas, told The Street. "Each of those have lowered the cost of creative which just creates more demand. The additional demand expands the creative community, it doesn't contract it."

Douglas is convinced that the productivity enhancement represented by AI will not hurt the industry. The people who currently hire professional creators to put together advertising content, for example, will not suddenly decide to use AI to make this content themselves. AI, Douglas said, is a tool that will make those professional creators more efficient. 

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"The average company is producing one round or two rounds of commercials a year. If we make them more efficient, they're actually going to mount six rounds or maybe one round a month," Douglas said. "They're not going to consume less, they're actually going to consume more if we lower the cost, and that's what's consistently happened as the tools have gotten better and better."

But incorporating AI into production doesn't mean every piece of content will be artificially generated. Douglas said that one of MNTN's biggest use cases of the technology involves live storyboarding, something that helps avoid the "nightmare scenario" of a client hating the film that a creator already shot. 

"If creators can bring down the time and cost to build the creative, people will ask for more," Douglas said. "Nobody loses their job. It actually creates more demand. You're not going to have all the people who buy from creators now all of a sudden want to replace their jobs."

Douglas likened the AI boom in the creative industry to self-driving trucks, saying that there is still a driver in the cab. As of right now, he said, no one is ready to take that human element out completely. 

And until that happens, AI, according to Douglas, will not be "technology to replace the creator. "It's technology to make them more productive."

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