Robots aren’t just for making your home life easier, but they’re also developed to make your working life easier.

McCann Erickson has taken this one step further, but creating a robotics employee whose sole purpose is to find great creative opportunities using big data to make sure the campaigns it creates are relevant to the audience it’s trying to reach.

The snappily named AI-CD β (how is that even pronounced?) processes data from adverts that won awards at the All Japan Radio & Television Commercial Confederation’s annual festival over the last ten years and worked out what it was that made these ads so attractive.

It feeds the information it extracts such as tone and content into an algorithm that is then matched with the requirements for an upcoming campaign and comes up with ideas for the client, specifically tailored to the audience it’s trying to reach.

A real-life creative director is then tasked with approving and actioning the idea, giving tasks to other staff members as is usually the case in a creative agency.

Not satisfied with just having the mind of a robot, AI-CD β also has a physical presence too.

“The creative director being in the meeting room is very important too, so we just thought we really need to create the actual body,” explains head of McCann Millennials Shun Matsuzaka explained to New Scientist.

Therefore, AI-CD β attends meeting and writes notes and briefs for other staff using its ‘arm’. Although not humanoid in looks, the presence has proven motivational for employees, Matsuzaka said.

AI-CD β started work on April 1st day, leading employees to think it could well be an April Fool. But, Matsuzaka said, even this was planned to try and dupe staff.

President & CEO of McCann Japan, Yasuyuki Katagi said, “Artificial intelligence is already being used to create a wide variety of entertainment, including music, movies, and TV drama, so we’re very enthusiastic about the potential of AI-CD ß for the future of ad creation. The whole company is 100 percent on board to support the development of our A.I. employee.”