AI is developing from a hyped topic to an integral part of brand management and brand work. Together with Dr. Steffen Schmidt, Prof. Baumgarth has been organizing the webinar format ‘AI Garage for Brands’ for about two years. Building on this format, various research projects, lectures, and seminars, the two hosts of the AI Garage for Brands have developed the concept of Augmented Brand Intelligence. This is characterized by the following features:

(1) AI is accepted and integrated as a full team member in brand work.
(2) The specific use case (e.g. brand positioning) and not the properties of tools form the starting point for augmented brand intelligence.
(3) Brand tasks, systems, and use cases require a meaningful combination of tools from different AI classes (causal, generative, and predictive AI) in conjunction with human intelligence and expertise.
(4) The human being is responsible for the exact description of the respective task, the selection of the appropriate tools, the input request, and the administration of the required data, as well as the interpretation and critical reflection of the AI results.
(5) Brand managers can only use augmented brand intelligence if they have comprehensive skills and expertise (e.g. mental models, data, creativity, critical thinking, and domain expertise).

A first article has now been published in the journal transfer – Zeitschrift für Kommunikation und Markenmanagement, which illustrates this concept using the example of brand positioning. The article can be downloaded here.