The 17th Global Brand Conference, which took place from April 22-24 in Edinburgh, provided exciting and up-to-date insights into global brand research with around 100 papers presented. Alexandra Kirkby and Carsten Baumgarth presented a framework and first results on the transformative power of AI on the day-to-day work of brand managers. The session, which was also chaired by Carsten Baumgarth, was the only session during this year’s GBC with a focus on the interface of AI and brand. In a second presentation, Anja Lambrecht and Carsten Baumgarth presented the results of their study on the influence of augmented reality on brand strength, analyzing in particular the influence of the personality trait narcissism. The conference, which this time took place under the conference theme “Conscientious Brands: Making Sustainability and Responsibility Work”, provided an excellent platform for knowledge exchange and networking as well as a starting point for new research projects.

The Expertenrat Technologiemarken e.V. is taking off again with a new Board of Directors. Prof. Dr. Carsten Baumgarth (Chairman), Jens Karolyi (Vice Chairman), Prof. Dr. Karsten Kilian (Treasurer & Secretary) and Dennis Merker (Board Member) were elected to the newly formed board at the general meeting. We would like to thank the previous Chairman Jürgen Gietl, who did not stand for re-election for professional reasons, and Dr. Florian Maier for their work. The new Board of Directors will tackle new projects and develop formats – digital and live – with full energy. The first major project is the development and launch of a new website, as the previous website was unfortunately hacked.

No other topic has influenced brand science and brand practice as much as AI in the last two years. After the play and experimentation phase, the focus is now on developing, testing and implementing concrete use cases for the integration of AI in brand work.

In a recent article in the trade journal, Carsten Baumgarth and Steffen Schmidt provide an up-to-date overview of the opportunities and challenges of using AI in holistic brand management. The article has been published in the magazine planung & analyse and can be downloaded here.