The Canadian Out-of-Home Marketing and Measurement Bureau (COMMB) has launched a beta test of OOH-GPT, its own AI-powered, pre-trained chatbot.

Right now, OOH-GPT is strictly informational, leveraging AI to support and educate agencies, operators and brand marketers about out-of-home. It can provide information on various aspects of OOH advertising such as its definition, types, advantages, effectiveness, targeting options, measurement and best practices.

“While COMMB boasts a range of objectives, many are centered around educating brand marketers about the advantages and capabilities of out-of-home advertising,” says Amanda Dorenberg, president of COMMB. “This is precisely where OOH-GPT comes into play to assist us. We are thrilled to launch the beta version of OOH-GPT, and we cannot wait to watch the tool evolve with the objective of supporting and educating those interested in the out-of-home advertising space.”

The new AI-powered system answers questions, provide insights, data-driven recommendations and personalized solutions to industry professionals. The goal is to empower marketers and advertisers to make more informed decisions and create more successful OOH campaigns.

Farrokh Mansouri, head of data at COMMB, developed the OOH-GPT tool with education being the primary objective. The idea behind the initiative, he says, came following a presentation he gave to a group of data scientists at a recent data summit. After the presentation he found that many of those in the audience weren’t aware of the capabilities of the OOH space.

“OOH-GPT humanizes the data,” he says. “Not everybody is a media expert so this makes it so much easier to plan and maybe even suggest other approaches.”

Mansouri also says he sees other ways the tool and other AI systems could be used by COMMB and its members.

“Currently OOH-GPT is just for information but definitely in the future we can integrate with our publications, with our research or our members,” says Mansouri. “We can even have internal systems where AI can help advertisers have a better understanding of the inventories across Canada – depending on how this project goes. This is a preview, a test and then in the future, there are further areas of opportunity.”

COMMB is monitoring how people are interacting with the chatbot and their engagement level. This monitoring tells the organization about what marketers want to know and provide insights into where more education is needed.