Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Creative

We often get asked what we think about AI and if it will change agency creative. The answer is yes. And no. And perhaps.

We really don’t know.

But we sure hope it doesn’t. At least not too much.

Because if it does, we will have lost the person-to-person connection that is the foundation of humanity.

Overdramatic? Maybe.

But we like to think of what we do as more than just creating “output” or “assets” or “transactions.”

We like to think that we’re creating real and meaningful connections between brands and consumers.

We get to know the consumers as people rather than data points. We understand what they want on a deep and human level, then use that knowledge to connect them with brands they care about. It’s a two-way and ever-growing conversation. Not just a pile of demographic data that combines images and words and appeals to the lowest common denominator.

It begs the question:

When you take people out of the equation, how does a consumer know what to trust? Where is the humanity?

Don’t get us wrong. We’re not anti-AI. Truth is, we’re using plenty of AI already. And it helps us do better work. We use A/B testing. We take advantage of big data to better pinpoint our aforementioned consumers. Heck, even the computers we use could be considered AI. But, as of right now, all those things are connected to a human. They require a human to input, extrapolate and assess—and that takes skill and time.

Such is the state with current AI. It requires quality human input in order to generate output.

So far, we haven’t seen AI-generated creative that competes with what we do. Outputs are rote, sophomoric and cliché. They are oftentimes very obviously fake. And, in some cases, they’ve been flat-out unethical. Stealing from someone else’s work without their permission will never be lauded in the creative world.

Our guess is that at some point these tools will be helpful in bridging communication gaps between agencies and clients. That they can serve as a starting point to illustrate desired outcomes. But they are unlikely to replace the authenticity and long-term effectiveness of consistent human engagement and meaningful connection.

That said, we can’t predict the future.

But for the sake of us all—we hope we all remain connected to each other and things that are real rather than to machines and things that are fake.