Thought Leaders #3: Tom Zeller, Global Creative Lead at Google Creative Works
Meet Tom Zeller. He is an independent consultant, for conversation design and creativity, now in the role of Global Creative Lead at Google Creative Works.
In his first engagement for Google, he helped develop the Google Assistant Personality for Germany. Tom studied Systems theory and communications at the University of the Arts in Berlin and worked as a writer and creative director for advertising and design agencies in Germany, The Netherlands, USA, and UK.
We discuss what it means to put users first, why it is better to have do-ers on your team, and how the role of the writer is changing in the age of AI.
Let’s dive in!
Why do you think it is so hard for computers to understand human language?
As a first question, it’s a good one, it’s a big one. To be frank, I’m not sure that computers have a problem understanding language. Meaning, they are very well set up to grasp its components and structures that build its framework — mainly as they are informed by humans after all. So, I would argue they are very well able to deconstruct and create the almost mathematical set up of language. We can see that with ChatGPT very well, does it make sense? Yes.
Does it create meaning, truth? Well, I guess we all had a laugh lately.
So the sentiment of your question enters into a more philosophical realm when it comes to communication. We could well ask “Why is it so hard for humans to understand humans?” And then add computers to the mix as another entity in an 1-on-1 exchange. What’s lacking to create better interactions, I think, comes down to three core elements that are creating meaning within the human experience: Context. Intent. Emotion. You could look at these and say they are elements of empathy, which is important to make interaction work. So it comes down to understanding ‘the other’. Understanding all things that we as humans sucked up growing up: culture, class, experiences, norms etc.
Language is only one element of communication. And a human by nature brings the full capability to make understanding happen.
As you might be aware, this interview series is called Thought Leaders. Do you see yourself as one?
Not really. My team at Google and I try to lead the doing and help build conversations that work through creativity and putting humans first. That involves thinking, yes, but I’m not leading in terms of participating in the public debate about our field. Thought leadership is a term that has become a bit inflationary. I sometimes feel it would be better to have more doers instead of leaders.
You worked on German version of the Google Assistant before. Do you see a future for global voice assistants like Siri, Alexa, and the Google Assistant?
Sure, I love voice experiences and the Google Assistant. We are still at the beginning of that journey even though this sounds stupid as they are around for so long already. There is a beauty in the simplicity of voice interfaces, for those capable, and we will see more voice controlled interactions — when it comes to functional tasks, like, asking for availability of shoes in a certain size. Why tap when you can talk?
Language is inherently human. I feel a lot of media on voice assistants expressed big expectations of what they will be used for. People have problems talking to their baker or butcher or even their partners, why would they suddenly start having meaningful conversations with an artificial entity beyond getting stuff done? That’s why I thought “Make Google do it”, the headline of the Google Assistant’s campaign, was spot on.
The big use cases are functional, like turning the light on or reading out my latest mails, not becoming your new best friend.
You currently work as the Global Creative Lead for Conversational Commerce. What can you tell us about the projects that you run, and what’s so powerful about conversational commerce?
So my team and I are tasked to help our partners create better conversational experiences. Better means applying conversation design best practices, putting the user first and getting started. A big challenge is focus, as contingency is overwhelming. You can do everything, so what do you do?
To get there, we run Design Sprints and get all the experts in a room to do just that — find out what we should do, and what is the right way forward to get things done.
To your other question, conversational commerce (and my team at Google Creative Works are not only helping on commerce, but care journeys as well) is that it puts the user front and center. It’s on their terms. It’s asynchronous. It can be as functional or fun as they want to use a conversational experience. I strongly believe that everything you can do in apps or websites today, will be conversational tomorrow. The thing is, visuals work fast, but words are more precise.
Large language models are the newest in a line of innovations. Where do you see things going in the next few years?
Let’s see. Every new technology was the end of civilization when it first entered the world. It will come down to what is useful to humans. And what is used. The biggest effects of AI learning do not touch us in our everyday — like genome sequencing and the likes. Only now we are introduced to playgrounds that can create pictures and text which makes elite skills available to everyone. It feels like going to the carnival and being amazed by what is possible. To me, that’s just hype and eye candy.
I think most people will use AI in some form of another, and not care. In the sense that they will accept it. For example, when using their phone and do a picture search — they will think it’s pretty neat that they can find the flowers in the pictures they shot, and that’s AI. When it comes to getting in touch with AI in their searches, when getting help or finding information about things. I don’t think they will challenge the contents like, oh well, no human wrote that.
A lot comes down to building trust in the predictability, and again, usefulness of the conversations and interactions we build. That’s a lot of work in terms of ethics, transparency and defining the rules of AI engagement. Over time, the frameworks will become smarter and will take more boring tasks out of our hands. I guess every semi-creative task will soon be AI-assisted, or AI done.
I mean, we are both writers first now — we might become editors first soon. No more blank paper. And a new way to be creative and test your ideas in seconds.
Follow Tom Zeller on LinkedIn
This interview is part of the Thought Leaders series: a collection of written interviews with industry leaders and experts in conversational AI. Feel free to reach out if you think I should talk to you.
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