Our Sentient Future

Ten years ago, I was honoured to be invited to the Next Web conference in the Netherlands where I delivered a keynote about sentient banking.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lfh9FkZh4jA

The idea is that the bank knows more about your lifestyle and living than you or your partner does. A decade later, thanks to Agentic AI and imminent AGI, we are getting there, and it made me think about the changing world and generations of the internet, which I’ve also talked about before:

• The Birth of Computing and Development of the Web
• web 1.0, the 1990s and the arrival of Elon Musk and mates
• web 2.0, the 2000s and lovely jubbly, social networking
• web 3.0, the 2010s and an internet of markets
• web 4.0, the 2020s and the Internet of Things
• web 5.0, the 2030s and Samantha

The thing is that during these generations of networking, another thing happens: the way we interact and behave. The biggest influence on these areas is how we become cognizant of things and, more nuanced, how the network becomes cognizant of us. The sentient network that is.

This came to me as I was preparing a new presentation about how technology is being used to market to us.

The first wave of online advertising replicated mainstream push media. TV adverts were converted to internet adverts, and huge amounts of money was spent on sponsoring websites to get the voice heard.

Then the second wave of advertising came with social media. Social media enabled adverts to move from push to pull, based upon the digital footprints of the consumer. The things we click pull the adverts to us. It still amazes me that if I Google indigestion, the next minute everything I click upon has a indigestion advert.

But that’s already last decade.

This decade we are moving to sentient advertising which is neither push or pull; it is integrated, embedded, ingrained and omniscient. We no longer receive advertising or search for goods and services; we just think about it and it’s there if you want it.

Intriguingly this will create huge challenges for both the consumer and the advertiser, as it will all be permissions-based and way beyond GDPR. Think about it. Here’s the future scenario:

You are in the shopping mall – yes, they still exist but are more physical social networking areas with restaurants, coffee shops and hairdressers, than places to buy stuff – and your AI networked glasses start screaming buy me, buy me, buy me. Everything you look at is advertising what it can do for you. The thing is that you have a filter which has pre-programmed what you see versus what you don’t. If you are happy to see adverts for things related to shoes, that’s ok; if you don’t want to see adverts for anything related to beauty products, that’s ok too.

Equally, with a single blink or turn of the eye left or right, you filter and switch on and switch off adverts. Add to this that the adverts you see are all based upon how you think and feel. If you have stomach burn today, you get lots of messages about how to relieve indigestion; if your partner left you yesterday, you get lots of messages about relationship break-up; if you thought about a holiday, you get ideas and offers of where to go, tailored to you; and so on.

The push-pull relationship is now integrated and embedded and tailored to your emotions, and how you think and feel. Sentient advertising and sentient banking are a thing, and coming to your brain soon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bXJ_obaiYQ