In a creative competition between humans and machines, who would win? That's the question at the heart of our SXSW 2024 panel submission. To answer it, we designed a real-life experiment, pitting a human team, an AI team, and a hybrid team against each other in the execution of a creative task. "Rise of the Machines" details that competition, including the three evaluation rounds that ultimately determined the winner. In addition to offering insights and applications gleaned from the experiment, the presentation will ultimately explore what it means to live and work in a world where generative AI, marketing, creativity, diversity, humanity, and commerce collide.

1. Digital Innovation
SXM Media Presents
© 2023 Pandora Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
A Human Vs. AI Rumble
SXSW 2024 Panel Submission
Steve Keller | Sonic Strategy Director
Studio Resonate | SXM Media
Mark Pappas | SVP Growth and Innovation
CMI Media Group
Kathleen O’Brien | Executive Creative Director
McCann Worldgroup | NYC
Scott Simonelli | Founder and CEO
Veritonic
Rise of the
Machines:

2. Digital Innovation
Context
© 2023 Pandora Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Tools for generating content via AI have grown
exponentially in the last few years. It’s hard to
escape the buzz around AI tools like DALL•E,
ChatGPT, MusicLM, and Murf.AI, and their impact
on creativity and advertising.
It all begs the question: In a creative competition
between humans and machines, who would win?
Campaign Magazine, Summer, 2023
AI: Competitor
or Collaborator?

3. Digital Innovation
© 2023 Pandora Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Concept
We put three teams (Human, AI, and a Human/AI
Hybrid) to the test, going head-to-head executing
against a creative brief, with each team delivering
two :30 audio spots: one focused on sales
activation, the other focused on brand building.
To choose a winner, contestants endured three
rounds of evaluation: A live pitch to a strategic
healthcare marketing agency, quantitative analysis
from a recognized third-party audio testing
company, and judged by a select jury of agency
CCO’s and audio professionals.
The
Competition

4. Digital Innovation
The Main Event
© 2023 Pandora Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
In this exciting and thought-provoking presentation, Steve
Keller, Sonic Strategy Director for SXM Media’s Studio
Resonate, is joined by Mark Pappas (CMI Media Group),
Kathleen O’Brien (McCann Worldgroup), and Scott Simonelli
(Veritonic), offering a behind the scenes look at this unique
experiment, documenting a real-world experience with AI,
both competitively and collaboratively.
In addition to offering insights and applications gleaned
from the competition and its participants, we’ll explore what
it means to live and work in a world where AI, marketing,
creativity, diversity, humanity, and commerce collide.
Get Ready
to Rumble

5. Digital Innovation
© 2023 Pandora Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
The Main Event
As an added twist, SXSW attendees will join in
the fun, casting their own votes for humans,
machines, and hybrids via a live, on-line poll
conducted during the presentation.
We’ll share the results of our audience vote to
see how YOU score the fight.
Place Your
Bets…

6. Digital Innovation
Competitors
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Team 1
Team 2
Team 3
In This
Corner…
Three teams from Studio Resonate (SXM Media’s
in-house creative agency) compete for the grand
prize: An AI team, a human team, and an
AI/human hybrid team.
Each team is headed by a Studio Resonate
Producer and Creative Director. Based on a
creative brief, each team is tasked with creating
a campaign to solve a marketing problem, as
well as producing two :30 second audio spots to
support their campaign strategy.

7. Digital Innovation
© 2023 Pandora Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Competitors
AI
• ChatGPT
• Midjourney
• WellSaid Labs
• ElevenLabs
• Evoke
• Soundful
In This
Corner…
The AI and Hybrid teams use a suite of AI tools
expressly vetted for use in the competition:

8. Digital Innovation
© 2023 Pandora Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Scoring
Mark Pappas
SVP Growth and Innovation
CMI Media Group
Round One:
Live Pitch
In the first round of the competition, each team must
present their campaign and audio spots in a live
pitch to Mark Pappas, SVP of Growth and Innovation
at CMI Media Group.
The pitch process is designed to imitate the real-
world process of answering an RFP (Request for
Proposal). Judging is blind, with Mark unaware of
which team is human, AI, or Hybrid.
Spoiler Alert: When Mark tries to guess the team
identities, he’s wrong on every account.

9. Digital Innovation
© 2023 Pandora Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Luis Miguel Messianu
Founder/Chairman Alma
Former DDB Global CCO
Founder Included
Tseliso Rangaka
CCO FCB | Joburg
President 2023 Cannes
Lions Audio Radio Jury
Mike Boris
Founder Jaded Melody
Former SVP Music Producer
McCann
Laura Potucek
Group Creative Director
Grey | NYC
Kathleen O’Brien
Exec Creative Director
McCann | NYC
Josh Rabinowitz
Founder Brooklyn Music Experience
Former EVP Director of Music | Grey
Round Two:
Judging
Scoring
In the second round of the
competition, each team’s
output is judged as if it were an
entry in an awards competition,
judged by a diverse panel of
experts.
Judging is blind, and each
team is judged on their
understanding of the challenge,
their strategy, their creative
approach, and the final result.

10. Digital Innovation
© 2023 Pandora Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Round Three:
Testing
Scoring
In the final round of evaluation, the audio
spots are tested on the Veritonic platform.
Veritonic’s explicit methodology provides
a quantitative analysis of each of the
spots across a variety of metrics:
attributes, engagement, intent, and recall.
Testing is blind, with a combined total of
1,102 panelists participating in the
evaluation.

11. Digital Innovation
© 2023 Pandora Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Analysis
Putting It
All Together
We’ll share the individual and
combined results of each round of the
competition, blending science and
creativity in pursuit of an answer to
the question: In a creative competition
between humans and machines, who
would win?
We’ll also share the time, talent, and
money spent by each team to develop
their solutions and produce their
spots.

12. Digital Innovation
Sound Results
© 2023 Pandora Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
And The
Winner Is...
Humans? AI? A team of both?
You’ll have to wait until SXSW 2024
to find out.

13. Digital Innovation
© 2023 Pandora Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Sound Conclusion
Lessons
Learned…
More than just a competition, our experiment helped us identify a number
of lessons that can prepare us for the inevitable impact that generative AI
will have on creativity, business, and advertising.
Our panel discussion will explore these lessons, and offer practical
insights, including:
• AI tools are better suited for performance-based advertising that
targets short term metrics, rather than emotional storytelling
• Human touch is still important to breathe life into AI output
• Humans need to mitigate the danger for misinformation,
reductivism, and bias that AI tools can perpetuate

14. Digital Innovation
Sound
Thanks
Steve Keller | Sonic Strategy Director
Studio Resonate | SXM Media
Yo. Adrian.
Sound
Thanks
See you at SXSW 2024!