The benefits and pitfalls of AI adoption in digital signage

When ChatGPT first entered the popular consciousness there was widespread curiosity and excitement about being able to ask a question and receive a response as if you were having a conversation with a real person — even if the accuracy of the answers sometimes left something to be desired.

For me, this human-like interaction is when many people had their initial ‘lightbulb’ moment with artificial intelligence (AI). They realised AI is something that could have a meaningful and enhancing effect on how we live and work.

With regards to the work we do here at Kinly, even at this early stage it’s clear that generative AI (Gen AI) platforms are going to have a major role to play in digital signage, especially as the scope of what we class as digital signage is set to grow.

The changing face of digital signage
Digital signage is no longer purely about screens on walls. Content can be published across multiple devices, to reach the workforce wherever they are. But this content needs to be creative, flexible, and intelligent to engage audiences. And this is where generative AI tools come in.

Not only are AI tools adept at writing content, but they can also optimise copy with auto-generated text to develop ideas and improve accuracy. They can even help find the correct tone of voice by analysing word choice and sentence structure — features that are of particular interest for those looking to take advantage of digital signage content management system (CMS) platforms.

CMS platforms have become increasingly popular because they provide a way of reaching the workforce irrespective of where they work – whether it be in the office, at home, on the road, via apps, or embedded within an organisation.

Gen AI is a creative force
These incredible tools allow you to take your thoughts and convert them into imagery, video — or even 3D environments. Such creativity from a few simple prompts can play a huge role in the inherently visual medium of digital signage.

Another application might involve Gen AI suggesting imagery, video or animation based on the text of a blog, article, or report simply by extracting certain text or selected keywords.

On the surface, this may sound fairly simple. However, ensuring that each new piece of content is both eye-catching and engaging is a fundamental part of digital signage. To do it well takes time, money and those all-important creative skills.

Thanks to the relative ease of use of Gen AI, more and more people are able to unlock the potential of the medium. Of course, it’s not to say that anyone can become a creative genius overnight. Using Gen AI requires a certain degree of technical awareness and the confidence to use the tools.

But once this knowhow becomes hard-wired into digital signage CMS products, it could be a real game-changer.

Potential applications include:

• Automatic corporate branding. AI has the ability to add your corporate branding to any new content as standard, solving one of the common challenges in digital signage — maintaining brand identity compliance.
• Automatic content tagging. Tagging helps to overcome the challenge of forgetting where assets are saved or what they are labelled as on a CMS. This is already in place in most business-grade CMS products. The downside is that it still requires users to create and apply tags. As such, it often gets overlooked and the discipline of tagging is lost. Gen AI could offer a simple solution by automatically tagging the content based on what it is.
• AI-synthesised audio narration. This simple application could automatically transform digital signage into an audio podcast that can be listened to — rather than read — while driving, on public transport or while walking to work.

Staying cautious
Despite the opportunities, the use of Gen AI is not without concerns. Since Gen AI tailors its output on what it’s learned, the security of data is paramount.

At Kinly, we’re monitoring this aspect closely with respect to our technology partners. We will never recommend any solutions where we have a concern about data security.

We prefer an opt-in policy, but believe there should always be an opt-out option — meaning that users need to consciously choose to opt-in to allow their data to be used. But regardless of whether a user has opted in, data should never be stored or processed for the purpose of training models that are then potentially accessible to other platform customers.

There are also some ethical concerns about the content produced by Gen AI, in particular, concerning issues such as gender or racial biases.

While many of these platforms are supposed to have guardrails designed to prevent the unethical use of their systems, you can never be too careful. Which is why our advice is that all content must be vetted, checked and double-checked to ensure it meets the highest standards.

There’s little doubt that Gen AI is a transformative technology. In terms of digital signage, it’s still a nascent technology, at least in terms of seamless integration with the software tools currently available. But these tools are already available and can be used right now to create AI-generated content and then imported into your digital signage CMS platform.

For us at Kinly, digital signage has the potential to be a powerful dynamic tool that can transform the way teams work together, wherever they are. And despite some concerns, there is no doubt that Gen AI is going to have a major impact.

Whether it’s taking a concept from your mind to the screen, removing the friction of managing content or presenting the finished work in a way that is best for the audience, Gen AI is here to stay.

To put it simply, when it comes to digital signage, Gen AI has opened the door to a whole new world of possibilities.

David Sumner is a digital media consultant at Kinly.