Me, Myself & Ai
A Creative Director's take on the promise, price, and possibilities of artificial intelligence.
Obviously AiI is impacting virtually everything we see, hear and think. However, this editorial is not going to be another general industry commentary, nor a predictable thought leadership piece about Ai. This is my side of a conversation, inspired and informed from my thoughts on the subject from the perspective of a working Creative Director who’s already integrating Ai into real projects, managing its limitations, and thinking seriously about what it means for the people and processes involved. It’s not advice, it’s opinion. Let’s get to it.
First, think for yourself, then with Ai.
Ai is great for quick, initial strategic competitive research and analysis. As a CD, I make this part of my creative process in getting to know a client's competitive landscape as much as possible. I research for myself from a high level as both a strategic and creative investigator, then cross reference my findings with that of Ai.
Ai is fantastic to brainstorm. Once again, harvest your first ideas and impressions based on a brief or what you know from your research, then run the creative challenge through Ai. The generated results can often be ideas that feel contrived or limited in their emotional or personal appeal, but there will likely be some suggestions to consider that you hadn't thought of, and would simply benefit from your human touch.
An extra set of hands, not necessarily an extra creative mind.
Rationales are readily created or refined with the help of ai. This can wrap up a presentation more efficiently, saving valuable time for other creative tasks in need before that deadline comes.
Ai is handy to source sketches or images for decks, visual direction, blogs etc. Sometimes the right prompts and programs can deliver perfectly useful assets to immediate effect, where the gist is what counts to get your idea across, or if the project simply does not give you the time nor budget to develop all the visual support yourself.
If you’ve taken advantage of Ai’s potential to quickly generate concept comps, it can help brief the actual human artists you hire. They can benefit from the clear or specific direction, and be spared exhaustive iterations, because the “direction” has been signed off by yourself or the client.
Generate thoughtful prompts based on your invaluable takes, and let ai do some of the legwork to plot or refine outlines for webpages, email blasts or newsletters. You will always have the power to trash it, refine it or adopt it almost verbatim.
Making the impossible possible, or at least affordable.
Budget Ai into your scope. I believe clients are open minded and interested enough in the potential of Ai to accept if not embrace its role in the process. And, you can be certain they've already considered using Ai instead of a creative vendor to get the job done, meaning you should allow AI to be part of the solution.
While quality control will always be a give and take with Ai created content, I've cut together Ai generated live action scenes with real stock footage with fantastic and seamless results. Let's be honest, you can't always find in stock, shoot with a crew or produce in post all the visions you can imagine. So if the quality is there and the content accurate, you have something incredibly valuable at your disposal to bring some of your more ambitious or experimental ideas to life.
Everything has a price, so there is a cost.
No doubt summaries, headlines, body copy, deck layouts, thumbnail images, animations and video clips, just to name a few, are finished assets being produced in seconds based on the quality of the prompts and the latest version of the program used. It’s a sad reality that human contributors are being replaced by this readily available option. The immediate benefits are time, effort, budget and control. The consequential cost is the original thinking, value, quality and collaborative opportunity a real person can offer - whether they also use Ai or not.
Creative leaders should make it a principle, or at least an effort, to incorporate other human creative professionals to produce work that is more relevant, insightful, accurate and most importantly personal. Budget in, or find the resources to include the perspectives and experiences of colleagues, contemporaries or global freelancers to enhance the output wherever and whenever possible. It’s not a requirement for strong work and happy clients, but it is acknowledging and understanding the value of the creative community that Ai ultimately taps into.
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With great creative power comes great responsibility.
Be honest and transparent about how you use ai - with clients, colleagues and yourself. As a creative professional, Ai has the prospect to giveth and taketh. Clients assuming it's as good as any human resource will use it instead of you. Colleagues and creatives who aren't honest with themselves or their clients can get caught misrepresenting information and outputs as something they are not. Inaccurate. Unlawful. Share your approach and be forthright with how you use it, and why Ai will make your work stronger through enhancing the processes and power at your creative disposal.
Yes Ai can help write rationales and copy, but that doesn't make it better than an actual writer's gift with words, strategies, insights and ideas. It's essential that humans read, reread, rewrite or at least edit anything Ai produces. A sharp mind can tell what's been written by a human versus a program. And of course there are programs that can also identify the difference - more or less. The point is strong writing still requires human editorial judgment, sensitivity, and accountability. So be mindful and responsible. Nailing a headline yourself is still fun.
Check, double check and triple check anything before handing it over to your clients, posting it live or getting it printed. Legislatively, there is some meaningful guidance, even as the legal landscape evolves. For example, the U.S. Copyright Office has stated that AI-assisted works can qualify for copyright protection when sufficient human authorship exists. Note that prompts alone don't necessarily establish that authorship, which puts any language or visual content created by or with the help of ai, at some level of risk now or later. Be smart and be careful. Some folks may even consider accrediting content as being created with the support of Ai. Something to keep an eye on.
Human intelligence still has a final say.
Ai is built on our legacy of human endeavors, constantly strives for our acceptance, and currently leans positive in its approach to flesh and bones. It’s sometimes a little too nice, acquiescent, and occasionally unselfish for being so powerful. For now it is what it is, even though it’s evolving at an unbelievable rate while I type “unbelievable”.
Don't be scared. Information and education is the best coping mechanism when it comes to understanding Ai and its potential role in your professional life. IMO humans still rule. That includes the ‘aha’ conception of big ideas, the impromptu jam sessions around strategic problem solving, the magic of collaborative creative brainstorms and simply a pen sketch on a sticky note.
As long as we have blood running through our veins, can see, speak, feel, hear and smell the world around us, we bring that 'je ne sais quoi' that can make all the difference. That’s French as you know for essentially describing 'special something', I grew up in Montreal so the idiom readily came to mind, but ai would have told you that as well. Or would it?
Notes: I hammered my stream of consciousness on the matter into chatgpt and asked for its opinion on my proposed blog. It loved it, made a format suggestion and offered a couple of section headers as it parsed out my thoughts in a second. I said thanks, and then wrote this myself. The images seen in the blog came from my prompt for chat to create something that was an androgynous mix of human elements, blended with ‘organic liquid tech’, performing particular actions, and inspired by the works of Dali and Bacon. The somewhat irreconcilable, blurred line visualized between the metamorphosis of humanity and artificial intelligence was my direction. We can’t give Ai all the credit.
