Artificial Intelligence: WHAT CONSEQUENCES FOR PRINTING AND WEB-TO-PRINT?

White Paper
Arti
fi
cial Intelligence:
WHAT CONSEQUENCES FOR PRINTING
AND WEB-TO-PRINT?
Ludovic Martin - July 2023
This work is made available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International Licence.
1
Arti
fi
cial Intelligence: what are the implications for printing and Web-To-Print?

Introduction
Who hasn't heard of ChatGPT? Over the past few months, the media have been abuzz with
interest in this new service, which gives concrete expression to the principle of arti
fi
cial
intelligence. Touted as the oracle of the 21stè century, this tool has been credited with some
of the greatest capabilities.
As with every disruptive innovation, the fashion effect was massive... and exaggerated.
ChatGPT replaced the MetaVerse fad, which had itself supplanted the NFT fad (remember
the images of a monkey bought for $1 million by Neymar...). And yet, while Arti
fi
cial
Intelligence is nothing new, it is undeniable that it has accelerated in recent months, and
that we are now witnessing the upheaval of many of the achievements of our digital world.
More than just a passing fad, the democratisation and generalisation of Arti
fi
cial
Intelligence will be akin to a new Industrial Revolution, in the sense that AI has the
capacity to transform working methods, speed up processes and automate a large number
of tasks. Nouriel Roubini, better known as "Dr Doom", prophesies in his book
"MégaMenaces " that the world of employment will be turned upside down, with AI
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replacing many human jobs, including in the highest spheres previously thought to be
untouched.
If you have any doubts, I invite you to try out Bard, its Google-made rival, rather than
ChatGPT. Where ChatGPT limits itself to generating content that meets your requirements,
Bard interrogates in real time the spider's web patiently built up by Google and its empire
over the years. Content, customer reviews, photographs, geolocalised data... Bard seems
capable of compiling it all, with a very eCommerce orientation that probably pre
fi
gures a
new business model for the years to come. And yet, in Europe, Bard is restricted by
regulations on the protection of personal data. Without them, it would be far more precise...
and chilling.
This industrial revolution is underway. Our tools, our daily lives, the way we work and
collaborate are all going to be transformed much more quickly than you might imagine.
All sectors of activity will be affected, including printing. In this white paper, I would like to
take you through everything that could be transformed, altered or destroyed by AI in the
printing and web-to-print sector, as well as the opportunities it opens up. Without claiming
to be exhaustive, I hope that this white paper will help you in your strategic thinking.
Ludovic
MegaThreats: Ten dangers that threaten our future, and how to survive them.
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Author: Nouriel Roubini - Editions Buchet-Chastel - Paris 2022
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AI: what are we talking about?
Before looking at the impact of AI on our businesses, I think it's important to clarify what
we're talking about. While everyone has heard of ChatGPT, few have actually tried it out.
And we shouldn't think that AI is limited to ChatGPT; the areas of application are much
wider.
In professional terms, I consider that today there are 5 categories of Arti
fi
cial Intelligence
tools:
1. Content generation and data enrichment tools: ChatGPT's GPT stands for
Generative Pre-Trained Transformer . In concrete terms, this is a chat channel that
2
enables users to converse in natural language with an arti
fi
cial intelligence to send it
requests and questions. ChatGPT is capable of producing textual content to answer
complex questions, produce essays, analyse and correct computer code or rewrite
product sheets to improve their natural referencing. Bard goes a step further,
offering visual results. But content generation tools are not con
fi
ned to text or image
searches: "text to image" systems can generate photos or illustrations from a query,
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with the results sometimes being totally astounding in their realism. The generation
of videos by "prompt " is still in its infancy, but there is no doubt that within a few
4
months it will be possible to generate a video clip from a synopsis, in a totally
arti
fi
cial way. Scriptwriters at Net
fl
ix have gone on strike for fear that their
profession will be one of the
fi
rst to be disrupted by AI.
2. Media processing tools: another important but lesser-known aspect of arti
fi
cial
intelligence concerns the reprocessing of images, videos and sounds. As well as
generating media from prompts, AIs can now perform tasks that were previously
considered extremely complicated or time-consuming with disconcerting ease:
cropping, vectorisation, creating embroidery lines, extending images, masking
elements in the visual composition, recolouring, changing the axis of the shot or
depth of
fi
eld,
3. Search and assistance tools: when it comes to assistance, particularly on websites or
in mobile applications, AI will profoundly transform user journeys. Where chatbots
5
failed for lack of intelligence, AIs fed with knowledge bases and behavioural data
will help customers
fi
nd the products they need more easily. The same applies to on-
site search, which will be completely overhauled, offering many more ways of
fi
ltering or interpreting requests in natural language.
Pre-trained generative transformer
2
Text to image: a system for describing to an AI the type of illustration required (style, components,
3
staging, etc.) in the form of a text request, so that it can then generate the image. The best-known
tools are MidJourney, Adobe Fire
fl
y and Canva.
Prompt: text query entered by a human into a generative arti
fi
cial intelligence tool
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Chatbot: user assistance interface in the form of an instantaneous conversation (chat) in which a
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human user interacts with an automated system instead of a human agent, often using a series of
questions to guide the response or proposal.
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4. Analysis and decision-making tools: in a marketing world crammed with data,
analysing and using data to guide decision-making remains complex. CRM systems ,
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Business Intelligence tools or Dataviz solutions will very quickly be enhanced with
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AI to analyse the mass of data available and suggest decisions, so that managers can
save time or detect weak signals more easily.
5. Automation tools: the
fi
nal category of AI solutions is those designed to automate
manual tasks and work
fl
ows. Now capable of interconnecting different tools and
analysing an environment to trigger a series of actions automatically, these types of
AI are opening up new perspectives in IT projects, replacing development with low-
code integration.
Think this is science
fi
ction? These tools are already part of your daily life, without you
even knowing it. Microsoft, for example, has integrated ChatGPT into Bing, its web search
engine, as well as into the Skype and Teams chat tools. Adobe has integrated content
generation and retouching functions into Photoshop. Salesforce and Zoho have also already
incorporated AI to improve customer data analysis.
To get an idea of the number of AI tools available on the market, you can consult directories
such as AI Tools Directory.
CRM: Customer Relationship Management software. These tools are used by the sales force to keep
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better track of their customers, detect changes in buying behaviour or suggest products.
Dataviz: short for DataVisualization. This term refers to the category of software used to
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graphically represent data in the form of tables, graphs, etc.
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AI in the printing industry:
What impact on which jobs?
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Production IT / MIS-ERP
Calculating an estimate remains an extremely complicated task in the printing industry,
given the number of variables that come into play and the different strategies that vary
from one sales rep or estimator to another. This is all the more true when you're working
across a period of high volatility in purchasing prices, as our industry experienced following
the COVID-19 pandemic.
AI will undoubtedly simplify this part: based on pre-de
fi
ned rules, objectives set in terms of
margin or competitiveness and the purchase prices of materials, I am convinced that the
new generation of ERP-MIS tools will be capable of automatically calculating relevant sales
prices, and automatically adjusting to price increases from suppliers. These tools will also be
able to analyse production cycles and customer demands to optimise purchasing and
anticipate peaks, without overloading stocks.
The organisation of production will also be profoundly impacted by AI: solutions for
optimising amalgams and reducing waste are already operational. I think we will soon see
the emergence of automatic job planning tools, with automatic suggestions based on
various criteria such as machine availability, stock, planned delivery dates and workforce. It
won't be a question of completely replacing a team leader or production manager, but rather
of effectively assisting them in the oh-so-complicated task of drawing up their production
schedules.
Another area in which AI will provide invaluable assistance to printers is in calculating the
carbon footprint of each printed product: at a time when CSR strategies are multiplying in
companies of all sizes, printers need to be able to provide an accurate carbon footprint of
their production, in addition to mandatory declarations such as Citeo. But how exactly do
you calculate this footprint? In the face of this new headache, AI will provide answers that
take into account the complete sourcing path of materials, by interconnecting with data
from manufacturers and papermakers.
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Decentralised generation
Print-on-demand is one of the most impactful trends of the last 3 years. First appearing at
the end of the 2010s, dropshipping of print has seen lightning growth thanks to the Covid
8
period. The number of eCommerce sites has exploded, and many brands have launched
merchandising activities. To do this, they relied on decentralised on-demand production
platforms, which dispatch manufacturing orders to a multitude of subcontracting
workshops. Several of these operators have made the strategic choice to focus this
decentralised production on reducing their carbon footprint, by organising production as
close as possible to the point of 'consumption'.
Faced with pure-player operators, machine manufacturers have been quick to react: the
new generations of machines are becoming increasingly intelligent, they are capable of
communicating and they have all the possible data on their load levels, availability, etc. In
this context, I am convinced that AI will enable machine manufacturers to offer customers
the power of a completely decentralised network of printing plants, in the form of an
international mesh, by taking advantage of the availability of the machines and their
speci
fi
c features. It is even conceivable that these intelligent systems could modulate the
selling price of services according to the availability of the
fl
eets, the load period or other
parameters.
For printers - and this is already starting to happen - this model will have an impact on
their relationship with machine manufacturers. From suppliers, the latter will become
principals, capturing an impressive amount of data. This is yet another factor that printers
will need to take into account in their strategy to avoid becoming too dependent...
Self-monitoring, self-diagnosis and self-repair of presses
Predictive maintenance is already a reality in our businesses: thanks to a host of sensors
and detectors, printing presses are able to determine which components or renewables
need to be replaced according to a prede
fi
ned programme. AI will undoubtedly enable us to
take things a step further: through their interconnections, the presses in a printer's
fl
eet
will be able to monitor each other, detect drops in productivity or problems and potentially
repair themselves in the event of a
fi
rmware update or technological failure, for example.
When it comes to cyber security, presses are just as many connected computers and
therefore just as many potential targets for hackers. Embedded systems will be able to
analyse all the weak signals across an entire IT estate to determine whether they recognise
the signature of an attack, so that preventive measures can be taken if necessary.
Organisation of collaborative work, human resources
management and
fi
nance
On a larger scale, like any other business, a printing plant brings together different
professions and dozens of employees, sometimes spread over several production sites. The
instant messaging, email, video and collaborative working tools they use are going to be
boosted by AI: automatic video transcription, instant meeting minutes, intelligent
Dropshipping: a distribution and production system in which a merchant site receives an order and
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transmits a manufacturing or delivery order to a subcontractor, who will produce and dispatch the
product to the recipient, usually on a white-label basis.
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appointment management with automatic management of an acceptable rate of meetings
in your diaries, automated translations... you'll soon see that these tools will be part of your
daily routine.
In terms of HR, this will also have an impact: more and more calendar, project and email
management tools manage the right to disconnect by anticipating employees' break periods
to prevent them from receiving too many requests.
Interconnecting HR-IS tools with ERP systems will also make it easier to manage the
resources you need, by alerting you, for example, to the need to reinforce your teams with
temporary workers, given your order book and production schedule.
Finally, in the
fi
nancial
fi
eld, with the imminent arrival of electronic invoicing, a large
number of sources of information will be interconnected: thanks to AI, your sales
management and invoicing software will be able to automatically and instantaneously
calculate your various key indicators, inform you if trends are alarming, monitor your
suppliers and customers to automatically set work-in-progress levels according to their
fi
nancial health... So many tasks that your teams are already carrying out, but more or less
manually or in a one-off fashion. Rather than waiting for these tasks to be carried out, AI
will enable you to anticipate them by automatically providing you with this information, in
order to facilitate and speed up your decision-making.
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Graphic design & Pre-press
From my point of view, the graphics division is the one whose jobs are going to be most
affected by the arrival of AI. Why is this? Because sophisticated tools are already
operational and integrated into graphics software. Because this division still requires a lot of
manual work, the cost of which has an impact on the selling price, particularly in web-to-
print. And
fi
nally, because this department is still responsible for checking the conformity
of
fi
les received by customers, and this analysis is still often carried out manually.
Design & Artwork creation
Many printers have a "creative" studio to meet their customers' day-to-day advertising
design needs. AI, as seen in the Adobe Creative suite or in generative tools, will boost the
creative process: rather than spending hours browsing image banks in search of the right
visual, designers will be able to have this image generated by an AI and then reworked. The
image can be generated from a blank page or from a visual supplied by the designer, to
guide the design process.
It will also be much easier to adapt your campaign to different formats: starting with a
master visual, AIs will be able to adapt your compositions to different formats, so all you
have to do is complete the job.
But beware: your customers will also adopt these techniques. If you don't add any value to
the AI's work, then your work will no longer have any value or meaning, and you will lose
a pro
fi
t centre in your business. In my opinion, AIs should remain assistants whose
objective is to improve team productivity, in order to strengthen the competitiveness and
creativity of printing plants.
Outlining, vectorisation and retouching
Many printers' DTP departments carry out visual retouching tasks on a daily basis, whether
it's clipping photos for catalogues, vectorising sponsors' logos or retouching images to
improve rendering, retouch colourimetry, etc.
Unfortunately, I think this activity will disappear. AI tools are so powerful and fast, and
they have so much data at the heart of images via their metadata, that they can carry out
these tasks to perfection, sometimes better than an experienced graphic designer. Of course,
there will always be examples where the machine won't do as well as a human, but
economically speaking, what customer is going to agree to pay for this service, when
Photoshop or Canva can do it for 'free'?
This development is going to happen very quickly: just test the beta versions of Adobe's
Creative suite, or play with Canva. The quality of the results is astonishing, and every
month the tools improve. Vectorisation systems produce stunning results; others enhance
low-de
fi
nition images to add resolution and enable them to be printed in HD. In practical
terms, this (r)evolution means that print shop managers need to think about the services
they offer and the added value they provide. Offering a graphic retouching service free of
charge could be a differentiating factor, provided that it can be successfully promoted and
made pro
fi
table.
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Automation & work
fl
ows
In recent years, pre-press work
fl
ow editors have made considerable progress, enabling
printing plants to automate a large number of tasks to improve productivity and reliability.
I'm convinced that AI will enable us to go even further, by automatically analysing the
input
fi
les in a hot folder, then by predictive control of production schedules and machine
availability, or by calculating optimised amalgams.
Instead of "stupidly" triggering series of actions according to scenarios, the work
fl
ows
associated with ERP systems will become the nervous system of the production part of a
printing plant, capable of receiving a multitude of information to guide jobs, make decisions
and organise production cycles: for example, delaying the production date of a job by a day
to wait for the completion of another job with similar characteristics, in order to optimise
amalgams. Or automatically group orders placed separately by the same customer to reduce
transport costs.
Within printing plants, the implementation of these work
fl
ows will require excellent
knowledge of their inner workings, by professionals in the trade. This is already often the
case in printing plants, but it is a capital that needs to be maintained and preserved, because
mastery of AI and the associated software will make all the difference in tomorrow's world.
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AI in web-to-print:
What are the implications?
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E-commerce is one of the sectors that AI publishers are targeting as a priority, given its
economic weight. All you have to do is try out Google Bard to see for yourself: the way
results are displayed, the combination of all the parameters involved in completing a sale,
the change in search methods - everything points to the fact that the way we sell over the
Internet is going to change radically in the next few years.
As a ripple effect, web-to-print will be affected by these developments linked to the
development of AI, and on several levels...
Website development
& landing pages9
At present, there are three options available to those wishing to set up a web-to-print site:
1. Have a speci
fi
c site programmed by IT developers from scratch;
2. Adapt an OMS platform or CMS (such as Wordpress / Woocommerce, Shopify,
10 11
Prestashop or Magento) to meet the speci
fi
c needs of online print sales;
3. Buy or rent a web-to-print platform and adapt it to your needs
In the
fi
rst two cases, the use of IT developers is unavoidable, and this can be time-
consuming, costly and often risky. In the third case, depending on requirements and
speci
fi
cations, an advanced user may be able to manage on their own, but it is generally
essential to also call on developers for certain speci
fi
c points, such as integrating payment
methods or transport methods, or connecting with accounting software.
These 3 options may one day become obsolete because of AI: one of the most impressive
capabilities of tools such as ChatGPT concerns the generation of computer code. Many
developers now rely on it to check their production or resolve errors.
We can therefore imagine that in a few months or years' time, eCommerce site generators
adapted to speci
fi
c contexts will emerge: they will be capable of creating an online sales site
according to a set of speci
fi
cations and perhaps even integrating prede
fi
ned product
catalogues. The same goes for landing pages, personalised banners and micro-sites
dedicated to speci
fi
c market segments.
While this is easily conceivable for online sales of manufactured products, I think it will
take a little longer for web-to-print, given the complexities of pricing methods and
production requirements. However, in merchandising, textiles or promotional items, where
the speci
fi
c features of the products are more easily standardised, this type of generator will
certainly make sense.
It will be interesting to see the strategy of software publishers with regard to AI,
particularly ERP-MIS publishers. I'm willing to bet that they will use this type of generator
to facilitate the production of web portals directly connected to their calculation engines. At
least, that's what I'm going to do myself ;-)
Landing page
9
OMS: Order Management System - web-based order management platform
10
CMS: Content Management System - web content management platform
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Content generation and content spinning
AIs are already very good at producing textual content and especially at rewriting
descriptions to improve organic referencing. For web-to-print platform operators, this
represents a tremendous opportunity to speed up the process of cataloguing and compiling
product data sheets, an often tedious and time-consuming phase.
For platforms operating multiple sites, with several showcase sites tailored to different
markets, tools such as ChatGPT will help to avoid duplicate content , by facilitating what is
12
known as content spinning : this involves rewriting existing content (for example a
13
product description) by modifying at least 30% of the existing content, so that Google or
Bing do not consider it to be a duplicate.
Searchandizing
A website's internal search engines are extremely important in the purchasing cycle. If
their results are not relevant enough, if the
fi
lter criteria are too narrow, or if they are too
strict, they run the risk of disappointing visitors and causing them to move on to another
competitor's site. These internal search engines are often neglected by online printers, due
to a lack of knowledge or appropriate tools, or because of the complexity of referencing the
catalogue.
When a catalogue exists within an eCommerce site, it becomes very complicated to modify
the referencing, add new criteria or
fi
lters, or modify the search experience - this is known
as searchandizing.
AI is going to transform this: a number of search engine publishers such as Algolia,
ElasticSearch and Doo
fi
nder are working on enhancing their tools with intelligent modules,
capable of interpreting user queries and exploiting all the data available to them, without
the need for complicated settings.
Audience acquisition / retention mix
The sinews of war in B2C and B2B web-to-print is audience acquisition and retention.
14 15
Most eCommerce sites create an acquisition mix based on SEO , SEA , advertising on
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Duplicate content: term used to designate textual content that is identical or almost identical to
12
other sources. It can be created intentionally or accidentally. Duplicate content can have a negative
impact on a website's SEO. Search engines such as Google and Bing do not like duplicate content and
can penalise websites that have too much of it (source Google Bard).
Content spinning: a technique that involves creating new content from existing content. This is
13
often done using automated tools that can replace words or phrases with synonyms, or by
reorganising the structure of the text. Content spinning can be used for a variety of purposes,
including generating content for a website, improving a website's search engine ranking or creating
high-quality content (source Google Bard).
B2C: Business To Customer - direct sales to private individuals
14
B2B: Business To Business - sales between professionals, sometimes in B2B2C mode for resellers
15
SEO: Search Engine Optimization - organic referencing by search engines such as Google
16
SEA: Search Engine Advertising - search engine advertising via paid campaigns such as Google
17
Ads, Bing Ads...
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social networks (or SMA ), inbound marketing content online / of
fl
ine and, although this is
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decreasing, emailing, often coldmailing . To build customer loyalty, tactics vary depending
19
on the operator and the target market: marketing automation, physical media (magazines,
samples, etc.), promotional codes and discounts, community management, email marketing,
etc. and customer reviews.
The balance of this mix is very subtle, with the key to pro
fi
tability often lying in the patient
work of organic search engine optimisation (SEO) and the quality of consumer reviews.
Marketing departments devote considerable energy to appearing on the
fi
rst pages of
Google results, if possible without having to pay.
But AI is going to change this mix: the tests I carried out with Bard showed that on a query
such as "Where can I buy customisable 10x21 cm
fl
yers online at the best price and with the
best reviews, and being sure that they are produced in France? the results presented were
limited to sites that Bard considers legitimate, and consistent with the requirement for
quality customer reviews.
Unlike the Google search engine, with this type of AI there is no page 2, 3, 4 or 5 of results.
Apart from the sites recommended by Bard, nothing else exists. This is a real challenge for
marketers of web-to-print sites, especially as these AIs are veritable black boxes: no one
really knows what the results are based on, what criteria have an in
fl
uence, or how to get
their site to 'rise' in the response lists. The fear is that to appear in the results, you will have
to pay in one way or another.
All customer acquisition and retention strategies will therefore need to be rethought
rapidly in order to anticipate changes in the results presented to customers. The complexity
and vagueness of these new models will bring alternative acquisition strategies, such as
direct marketing, back into fashion.
SMA: Social Media Advertising - paid advertising campaigns on social networks, such as Facebook
18
Ads / Business Manager
Coldmailing: unsolicited advertising email campaigns sent to target audiences on the basis of
19
prospect
fi
les purchased or rented from professionals.
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The end of templates?
Today, AIs are capable of generating photorealistic images from a text-to-image prompt.
Tomorrow, I'm sure that these same AIs will be able to generate complex document models
using the same principle. This will be "text-to-template", with requests such as "Design a 16-
page A4 brochure mock-up for a new
fl
at development in the centre of Montpellier, with a
modern, urban design suited to people aged between 35 and 40"...
Canva is starting to work on systems of this type, and it won't be 3 years before these
techniques become widespread. In practical terms, this will put a fatal end to the use of
hand-created templates to populate the template banks of web-to-print sites. What
constitutes capital for certain operators is likely to evaporate in favour of more modern
publishers with in
fi
nite capacities.
In terms of audience acquisition, this is also likely to change the game: many online printers
promote their customisable templates to attract customers. However, with this type of new
generation of text-to-template AI, customers will turn
fi
rst and foremost to publishers such
as Canva. They will only worry about printing once their design has been
fi
nalised, and
there is a good chance that the print run will be ordered from Canva...
Automated mockups & templates
In the same spirit, the production of technical templates in PDF, EPS, AI or INDD formats,
or the creation of customisable mockups, will be totally automated by AI. What is currently
complex, tedious and time-consuming will become simple and intuitive, either from graphic
design software such as Illustrator, or from web-to-print platforms. If you're planning to
spend several weeks creating super mockups or hyper-precise templates in a multitude of
formats, think again. It could be a waste of money...
Parametric con
fi
gurators, product selection assistance & UX20
One of the main obstacles to the development of online print buying is the dif
fi
culty
customers have in choosing the right product for their needs: materials,
fi
nishes, options,
even dimensions in the case of packaging, the pitfalls can be numerous and it remains
dif
fi
cult to guide users through the multitude of references.
AI will be a great help here: customers will be able to query the search engine by expressing
their need (for example: "I'm looking for luxury packaging that can be customised inside and
out for a bottle ... cm high and ... cm in diameter, containing a
fl
ammable product, for
transport by air"). The AI will then be able to suggest the packaging best suited to the
request, automatically excluding any other inappropriate models.
The customer will save time and avoid making mistakes. The printer, for his part, will
reduce his abandonment rate by responding precisely to his customers' needs.
In product sheets, I also think that AI could radically transform the customer experience, by
replacing the forms and drop-down menus of con
fi
gurators with a kind of interactive chat,
in which the AI will re
fi
ne the need by answering questions.
UX: acronym for User Experience, a term used to describe everything that contributes to
20
improving the usability of web and mobile interfaces.
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I'm convinced that these new modes of interaction will radically change the way people buy
online and consume personalised print. Extended menus, scrolling through product
21
categories and complex product sheets will give way to user-friendly interactive interfaces,
somewhere between a chatroom and a con
fi
gurator, where customers can talk about their
needs and constraints and the AI will suggest the right product at the right price, with
several options. The aim is to simplify the buying process, reassure customers and provide
them with all the information they need, in a very short space of time.
We'll be closer to experiences halfway between m-Commerce and direct messaging, as the
Chinese are experimenting with WeChat, which I believe foreshadows the future of
Twitter/X.
Back-Of
fi
ce
As online printers are well aware, web-to-print platforms rely on a large number of rules,
whether for calculating prices, combining options and attributes or calculating V
AT. At best,
these rules are con
fi
gured in an 'intelligent' way, with inclusion/exclusion criteria and
prioritisation; in most cases, they are created in hard copy in the computer code, or
managed on a product-by-product basis. In general, this is a nightmare when it comes to
updating material prices or adding options.
The same problem applies to the rules for calculating V
AT or carriage costs depending on
the destination. You have to import grids, update them manually, and test to make sure
there are no errors.
I think that AI is going to save a lot of time on these con
fi
gurations, thanks on the one hand
to interconnections with the AI of third-party services, for calculating V
AT or transport
costs, and on the other hand to the de
fi
nition of dynamic instructions via natural language
programming of business rules (for example: "I want to prohibit the application of
lamination on recycled paper" or "I want to prohibit deliveries on D+1 for orders of more
than 5,000 copies").
This principle will also be used to calculate and dynamically adjust delivery dates according
to various criteria, such as closing days, holidays, order placement times, machine load, sick
leave or absences in teams, etc.
Finally, as I explained earlier in the section devoted to the evolution of prepress services, AI
will make it possible to carry out a "pre
fl
ight " of the
fi
les supplied by the customer and
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dynamically correct any errors. Pre
fl
ight systems already exist on certain web-to-print
sites, but they are a real turn-off for novice customers who see their screen light up like a
Christmas tree as soon as they submit their
fi
le. Error messages are generally
incomprehensible to novices, who will never take the risk of printing "despite the
warnings"...
AI pre
fl
ight mode will not be con
fi
ned to analysing a few rules, but will be able to carry out
a global and complete analysis, making corrections to
fi
les in real time and offering the
equivalent of a print order to the customer. The UX will be more like "your
fi
le contained a
Scroll: the action of scrolling the content of a page on a screen.
21
Pre
fl
ight: technology for analysing
fi
les supplied by a customer to detect non-compliance with pre-
22
established rules or business standards.
16
Arti
fi

few errors, we've corrected them. Are you OK?" with before and after graphics and very
clear explanations.
Here too, as with the in-site search, the result will be simpler, clearer and more reassuring
for the customer, with a reduction in the shopping basket abandonment rate for the online
printer.
17
Arti
fi

The impact of AI
on the advertisers' ad buying
behaviour
18
Arti
fi

AI will boost web marketing at the expense of print
Companies are over
fl
owing with data, but they are generally unable to use it effectively to
better serve their customers or improve their commercial performance.
Thanks to AI, companies will be able to better process and interpret the masses of data at
their disposal to deliver hyper-targeted and hyper-personalised advertising. And this will
probably be highly automated...
The bad news is that this trend is likely to bene
fi
t web marketing exclusively, which seems
logical given that the companies behind the main consumer AIs derive a large part of their
revenue from digital advertising (Google, Microsoft, Meta and Twitter). I fear that the
erosion of print advertising budgets in favour of web marketing will become even more
pronounced, unless personalised print technologies directly connected to CRM platforms
rapidly become widespread.
Of
fl
ine is the new luxury
The downside of this trend is that hyper-targeted web marketing will become the dominant
trend, and we can be sure that the big web advertising companies will exploit it to the hilt.
To the point of saturating customers and putting them off this type of advertising...
A number of analysts are predicting that in the near future, luxury brands will move away
from 'mainstream' web marketing and exploit an of
fl
ine register. Disconnection will be
equated with luxury and exclusivity, while all-digital marketing will be for the masses. It's
an interesting swing of the pendulum, and one that will bene
fi
t part of the printing sector,
which is capable of serving the needs of the luxury industry.
19
Arti
fi

Summary
20
Arti
fi

RISKS AND OPPORTUNITIES OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
FOR THE PRINTING INDUSTRY
RISKS OPPORTUNITIES
Reducing print advertising
budgets in favour of web
marketing
Promoting disconnected
marketing in the luxury industry
Disappearance of professions
linked to pre-press and
photographic retouching
Easier price calculations and
material cost updates
New organic referencing
strategies that could have a major
impact on online printers'
acquisition strategies
Help with calculating the carbon
footprint of orders
Disappearance of "old-style"
personalised models and
devaluation of this capital
Easier production planning and
calculation of delivery dates
Graphic design platforms favoured
over online printing sites
Optimising production and
amalgams, reducing waste
Risk of printers becoming more
dependent on printing press
manufacturers and their
decentralised printing networks
Facilitating the design of showcase
sites
Greater dif
fi
culty in emerging and
creating competitive advantage
New user experiences in the
online print purchasing process
21
Arti
fi

Artificial Intelligence: WHAT CONSEQUENCES FOR PRINTING AND WEB-TO-PRINT?

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