Meet MonkGPT—How Building Your Own AI Tools Helps Safeguard Brand Protection

Read more about Meet MonkGPT—How Building Your Own AI Tools Helps Safeguard Brand Protection

Meet MonkGPT—How Building Your Own AI Tools Helps Safeguard Brand Protection

AI AI, AI & Emerging Technology Consulting, AI Consulting, Digital transformation, Talent as a Service, Technology Services 5 min read

What I’ve learned from months of experimenting with AI? These tools have proven to be a superpower for our talent, but it’s up to us to provide them with the proper cape—after all, our main concern is that they have a safe flight while tackling today’s challenges and meeting the needs of our clients.

At Media.Monks, we’re always on the lookout for ways to integrate the best AI technology into our business. We do this not just because we know AI is (and will continue to be) highly disruptive, but also because we know our tech-savvy and ceaselessly curious people are bound to experiment with exciting new tools—and we want to make sure this happens in the most secure way possible. We all remember pivotal blunders of these past months, like private code being leaked out into the public domain, and thus it comes as no surprise that our Legal and InfoSec teams have been pushing the brakes a bit on what tech we can adopt, taking the safety of our brand and those of our partners into consideration.

So, when OpenAI—the force behind ChatGPT—updated their terms of service, allowing people who leverage the API to utilize the service without any of their data being used to train the model as a default setting, we were presented with a huge opportunity. Naturally, we seized it with both hands and decided to build our own internal version of the popular tool by leveraging OpenAI’s API: MonkGPT, which allows our teams to harness the power of this platform while layering in our own security and privacy checks. Why? So that our talent can use a tool that’s both business-specific and much safer, with the aim to mitigate risks like data leaks.

You can’t risk putting brand protection in danger.

Ever since generative AI sprung onto the scene, we’ve been experimenting with these tools while exploring how endless their possibilities are. As it turns out, AI tools are incredible, but they don’t necessarily come without limitations. Besides not being tailored to specific business needs, public AI platforms may use proprietary algorithms or models, which could raise concerns about intellectual property rights and ownership. In line with this, these public tools typically collect data, the use of which may not be transparent and may fail to meet an organization’s privacy policies and security measures.

Brand risk is what we’re most worried about, as our top priority is to protect both our intellectual property and our employee and customer data. Interestingly, a key solution is to build the tools yourself. Besides, there’s no better way to truly understand the capabilities of a technology than by rolling up your sleeves and getting your hands dirty.

Breaking deployment records, despite hurdles.

In creating MonkGPT, there was no need to reinvent the wheel. Sure, we can—and do—train our own LLMs, but with the rapid success of ChatGPT, we decided to leverage OpenAI’s API and popular open source libraries vetted by our engineers to bring this generative AI functionality into our business quickly and safely.

In fact, the main hurdle we had to overcome was internal. Our Legal and InfoSec teams are critical of AI tooling terms of service (ToS), especially when it comes to how data is managed, owned and stored. So, we needed to get alignment with them on data risk and updates to OpenAI’s ToS—which had been modified for API users specifically so that it disabled data passed through OpenAI’s service to be used to train their models by default.

Though OpenAI stores the data that's passed through the API for a period of 30 days for audit purposes (after which it’s immediately deleted), their ToS states that it does not use this data to train its models. Coupling this with our internal best practices documentation, which all our people have access to and are urged to review before using MonkGPT, we make sure that we minimize any potential for sensitive data to persist in OpenAI’s model.

As I’ve seen time and time again, ain’t no hurdle high enough to keep us from turning our ideas into reality—and useful tools for our talent. Within just 35 days we were able to deploy MonkGPT, scale it out across the company, and launch it at our global All Hands meeting. Talking about faster, better and cheaper, this project is our motto manifested. Of course, we didn’t stop there.

Baking in benefits for our workforce.

Right now, we have our own interface and application stack, which means we can start to build our own tooling and functionality leveraging all sorts of generative AI tech. The intention behind this is to enhance the user experience, while catering to the needs of our use cases. For example, we’re currently adding features like Data Loss Prevention to further increase security and privacy. This involves implementing ways to effectively remove any potential for sensitive information to be sent into OpenAI’s ecosystem, so as to increase our control over the data, which we wouldn’t have been able to do had we gone straight through ChatGPT’s service.

Another exciting feature we’re developing revolves around prompt discovery and prompt sharing. One of the main challenges in leveraging a prompt-based LLM’s software is figuring out what the best ways are to ask something. That’s why we’re working on a feature—which ChatGPT doesn’t have yet—that allows users to explore the most useful prompts across business units. Say you’re a copywriter, the tool could show you the most effective prompts that other copywriters use or like. By integrating this discoverability into the use of the tool, our people won’t have to spin their wheels as much to get to the same destination.

In the same vein, we’re also training LLMs towards specific purposes. For instance, we can train a model for our legal counsels that uncovers all the red flags in a contract based on both the language for legal entities and what they have seen in similar contacts. Imagine the time and effort you can save by heading over to MonkGPT and, depending on your business unit, selecting the model that you want to interact with—because that model has been specifically trained for your use cases.

It’s only a matter of time before we’re all powered by AI.

All these efforts feed into our overall AI offering. In developing new features, we’re not just advancing our understanding of LLMs and generative AI, but also expanding our experience in taking these tools to the next level. It’s all about asking ourselves, “What challenges do our business units face and how can AI help?” with the goal to provide our talent with the right superpowers.

Monk Thoughts The real opportunities lie in further training AI models and exploring new use cases.

Michael Balarezo

Global VP, Enterprise Automation

It goes without saying that my team and I apply this same kind of thinking to the work we do for all our clients. Our AI mission moves well beyond our own organization as we want to make sure the brands we partner with reap the benefits of our trial and error, too. This is because we know with absolute certainty that sooner or later every brand is going to have their very own models that know their business from the inside out, just like MonkGPT. If you’re not already embracing this inevitability now, then I’m sure you will soon. Whether getting there takes just a bit of consultation or full end-to-end support, my team and I have the tools and experience to customize the perfect cape for you.

Leveraging OpenAI’s API, we built an internal version of ChatGPT, enabling our talent to use a popular tool that’s business-specific and more secure. AI technology tooling innovation brand safety Technology Services AI & Emerging Technology Consulting AI Consulting Talent as a Service AI Digital transformation

How to Make Friends and Influence People Authentically

Read more about How to Make Friends and Influence People Authentically

How to Make Friends and Influence People Authentically

4 min read

The FTC recently released a set of guidelines informing influencers of how they should disclose branded content. They range from some of the more obvious points (definitely disclose that you’re being paid to promote something) to more stringent ethical concerns—for example, influencers can’t talk about an experience with a product you haven’t tried, nor can they praise a product that they don’t think is good.

These guidelines are not only useful to maintain transparency with consumers. In fact, they remind us how brands and influencers can—and should—form more meaningful partnerships that benefit them both. Doing so achieves a truer sense of authenticity, authority and integrity, exactly what a brand seeks to infuse in their story when working with influencers. Here’s how to make that happen.

Adopt a Community-First Mindset

The surest way to build authenticity into an influencer campaign is to center the story around the community you hope to connect with. Consider, for example, how many leading content creators interrupt or introduce their content with a scripted spiel about a product that doesn’t have anything to do with the content itself. For many in the audience, these ad reads might have a “it’s what pays the bills” kind of vibe, rather than a reliable endorsement from the influencer.

Monk Thoughts Get at the heart of what the influencer means for their audience.

Claudia Cameron

Head of Digital Marketing, IMA

While such a tactic might increase reach and awareness, it doesn’t go far enough in creating a meaningful connection with the audience. “A lot of companies think about influencer partnerships like they would a media spend,” says Claudia Cameron, Head of Digital Marketing at IMA, a digital influencer agency that merged with MediaMonks in August. “Get at the heart of what the influencer means for their audience, rather than focusing on getting in front of as many people as possible.”

In an ANA presentation on how brands can retain relevance through influencer partnerships, Hot Wheels Sr. Marketing Director/Head of Brand Marketing Ricardo Briceno discussed the toy brand’s strategic, long-term partnership with vlogger Tanner Fox. As an automotive enthusiast, it was clear how Fox’s content overlapped with the brand’s mission to ignite a challenging spirit in children through cars. “What is the shared value between what Hot Wheels stands for and what the creator stands for?” Briceno asked rhetorically, demonstrating key questions that brands should consider in forming their approach to partnership.

Allow Creative Control for Added Authenticity

Defining this shared value and goals does more than ensure a brand’s goals and influencer’s audiences are aligned. It can also help build confidence and comfort in giving the influencer freedom to create content how they choose. Cameron advises that brands provide influencers this flexibility.

Our influencer-led campaign for L'Oreal Paris gave influencers the freedom to create content however they pleased, within brand guidelines.

This enables the brand to achieve authenticity and relevance by building the story around the influencer’s audience. “Set the campaign to fit the feed, rather than the other way around,” Cameron says. “You can give influencers parameters in how you want to position the brand, allowing them to connect strategically with the audience.”

And no niche is too small or obscure to make a meaningful connection. In promoting its new navigation device, electronics company TomTom faced a challenge: how could they reach an audience of truck drivers, who are notoriously hard to reach with so much time spent on the road? Inspired by the insight that truckers combat loneliness through social media connection, IMA tapped into an online community of drivers and discovered 18 of its most influential users, paving the path for TomTom to engage with the community in a genuine way. It shows how the value of influencers extends beyond the glossy image that the term “influencer” commonly conjures up—and that even those without big followings can earn big user engagement.

Build Lasting Relationships and Trust

Brands can do more than give up some creative control to maintain authenticity. Cameron suggests they achieve a higher quality relationship with influencers by moving away from short-term campaigns and cultivating longer-term partnerships instead—at least six months at minimum. “You need an understanding of how the influencer talks with their audience, then apply that with your strategy,” says Cameron. “When connecting with niche audiences, this becomes very specific.” Nurturing a longer-term relationship helps build that understanding.

Monk Thoughts You need an understanding of how the influencer talks with their audience, then apply that with your strategy.

Claudia Cameron

Head of Digital Marketing, IMA

This also helps influencers feel more involved with the brand. “If you’re a makeup brand and there’s a new release, make sure your influencer gets it before anyone else,” says Cameron. She notes that gifting products alone is no longer an effective strategy for building social buzz, though brands can build involvement by offering influencers—and their communities—with an exclusive experience.

Keep Up with Evolving, Cross-Border Guidelines

Regardless of how deep your relationship is with an influencer, it’s important to keep abreast of regulations and guidelines like those recently released by the FTC. But this offers a challenge to global brands: each market has different rules to follow. A global partner like IMA can help brands and influencers alike ensure their message is within local guidelines while maintaining a global brand standard.

Cameron also notes that disclosure is quickly getting better on social platforms like Instagram, which offers a paid partnership tag that clearly labels branded content. Far from harmful to branded content’s effectiveness—“We don’t see any negative ramifications yet,” says Cameron—the tag offers greater visibility for the brand by highlighting its role in creation of the content.

With greater visibility for the brand, added authority for the influencer and transparency toward the user, it’s easy to see how improved disclosure offers a net positive for everyone and builds stronger relationships. And that’s what influencer marketing is about: forging a meaningful connection and offering real, relevant value to the audience.

Whether ensuring influencer content is compliant with regulations or relating to niche audiences on a real level, these best practices will help you inject authenticity into your brand. How to Make Friends and Influence People Authentically Transparency and meaningful relationships are key to authenticity.
brand safety brand authenticity relateability influencers influencer marketing IMA social media marketing influencer partnership legal brand guidelines influencer guidelines

Subscribe to brand safety