Jeff Ferguson with Jason Barnard at Search Marketing Summit 2019 Jeff Ferguson talks with Jason Barnard about AI and ML in Google. Jeff Ferguson gets us started with a nice Elvis impersonation. And we agree he has an admirable business card. On a more serious topic, AI is science fiction, Machine Learning is what we mean. And will we ever allow AI to get to the stage where it can truly emulate a human. In Digital Marketing, ML has allowed us to move to become more marketers that tech. What we are doing in marketing, but just using modern tools. And that means we should be thinking in terms of strategy rather than focussing on tactics. There is no point in trying to hack the algorithm. Understanding, deliverabilty and credibility is a solid approach (I led Jef very not subtly into agreeing with me there). Then onto “ML started in the 50s… why is it blossoming now?”. And with that our job is now to effectively feed the machines with information. We are moving towards a knowledge graph in real time. And things are moving forwards at an accelerating rate. Are we perhaps moving too fast? And as it moves forwards we are now at the stage where we can no longer even look into the algorithms and data since the format is not understandable to us. Then I get overwhelmed with something as simple as Captcha. GAFA use mechanical Turks. R2D2 gets a mention. Jeff tells me that I do indeed have more computing power in my phone than NASA took to the moon.