How Intuit is compiling Gen Z first-party data through generative AI

Over the past two months, financial software company Intuit has been racking up Gen Z engagement—and first-party data—through generative AI-powered aura readings. Users submit a selfie, answer a few questions on their attitudes toward money (i.e. “What is your spending style?”) and out pops a Pixar-like rendition of the user emanating the colors of their “financial aura”—a play on the spiritual belief that a body of energy surrounds one’s physical body. According to Intuit’s interpretations, swirls of orange represent “radiant positivity attracting fiscal success,” while tendrils of purple reflect keen market perspectives. View this post on Instagram A post shared by maddi winter (@maddi_winter) The readings, along with the AI-generated portraits, created a buzz amongst Gen Z consumers, which accounted for 61% of the total audience, per Movement Strategy, a social media agency that worked on the effort. A microsite housing the AI experience has seen 15,000 visits since the start of the “Automagical” campaign, and a web page detailing Intuit’s AI offerings—which was linked throughout the AI content— has seen 69,000 visits over the same period. In total, the effort has garnered roughly 572,000 engagements, according to Movement. Also: Walmart and Peacock team up on AI-powered shoppable ads Intuit’s campaign comes as more brands are starting to use AI-powered experiences to draw first-party data from consumers. Doritos recently asked gamers to hand over their names and emails in exchange for a software download that silences the crunchiness of eating chips. Burger King also ran a campaign last month that traded an AI experience for personal information. Intuit asked for the users’ emails in order to send them their aura readings and AI-generated selfies. Interactive microsites tied to ad campaigns have long been used as a way to court users to relinquish data, but with the growing mainstream interest in AI, marketers have a new way to build enticement. “It's no surprise that brands need to work harder to secure first-party data,” Barry Lowenthal, president of advertising software company Inuvo, told Ad Age. “And using highly entertaining AI-generated bots is a smart way to up the value exchange.” Not all marketing folk, however, are fans of the approach. “I would challenge companies to think deeper about how AI can be used to provide something that elevates or improves a consumer’s experience, versus a flash-in-pan stunt that leverages a low-value, quickly forgotten digital artifact,” said Jon Hackett, VP of technology at Huge. Intuit said that user data compiled from the campaign is not being used for marketing purposes. “Automagical” was primarily launched as an effort to familiarize younger audiences with Intuit’s new generative AI capabilities, including finance-focused large language models (LLMs) and a virtual assistant, Intuit Assist. But paying taxes can be a dry subject, so the brand opted for more entertaining methods of communication via social media. Influencers on TikTok and Instagram posted ads for Intuit’s new platform, beginning with “sleight of hand” influencers that use video editing tricks to create illusions. In one video by Jillian Nicole Smith, the caption references Intuit’s “GenAI-powered finance,” suggesting that the inclusion of the technology itself is the selling point. Magic was a key theme of the campaign given Gen Z’s apparently rising interest in fortune telling, tarot cards and astrology, according to data cited by Movement. Intuit paired this interest with AI’s enigmatic reputation, posting videos of magic 8-balls predicting the impending rise of the technology. Other influencers eventually posted their experiences with the microsite and a filter available on TikTok and Instagram, while sharing links to grow the campaign’s reach. This group generated 2.4 million video views and much of the visits to the web page detailing Intuit’s AI offerings, per Movement. Intuit’s data-driving effort coincides with the disruption of third-party cookies and other traditional targeting methods, which is forcing marketers to place a higher premium on first-party data, as Lowenthal mentioned. Ad ecosystems like Google continue to roll out new tools to help marketers along, but as evidenced by Intuit, brands are also taking matters into their own hands.

How Intuit is compiling Gen Z first-party data through generative AI

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