Now that AI has its feet firmly under the table of creative businesses up and down the country, it’s a good time to take stock and see where the real gains actually fall. When getting creative with AI, we’ve made huge strides in working out what’s worth doing and what is a massive 6-fingered waste of time.
As an agency we have committed time and resources to figuring out how to make the best use of AI. There has been a LOT of experimentation and, in some cases, some horrors produced along the way, but we have also picked up some wins. To save you from seeing some of the things we have, we’ve shared our learnings. Read on for more info.
What works well…
- Simple image manipulation – if your photography isn’t looking quite how you want it, maybe you’d like a colour tweak or a product swap, AI can be a great way of cutting down on hours of photoshop time.
- Concept visualisation – whilst totally AI generated images are far from perfect, creating content with AI is a good way to illustrate a concept before you get into the nitty-gritty.
- Client research – if you want to know more about an industry or business, chatting this through with AI can help you understand it better.
- Sense checking – not sure you’re on the right track with an idea or proposal? Asking AI to critique it can throw up things you might have missed.
- Figuring our how best to use AI – if you’re not sure how to best use AI, ask AI.
…what’s not so great.
- Detailed image work – creating with AI is in no way a substitute for good photography. As things stand, generating an image in AI will only take you so far. If you value your brand, proceed with caution…
- Concept creation – if you want something original, don’t turn to AI. It’s fed by what has already been done so you won’t find anything ground-breaking here.
- Creating work truly tailored to the client. – Can AI produce an ad? Sure, but it won’t instinctively know how to get all the elements just right so they address all the client’s needs, no matter how detailed your prompt.
- Consistency – sometimes the same prompt yields entirely different results. Why? We’ve no idea but it’s infuriating.
- Processing complex tasks from a single prompt – “hey AI, can you do this fifteen step process to accomplish XX?” AI has a breakdown and spits out garbage.
- Writing blogs (obvs) – I’d like to see AI write a blog of this calibre, go on ChatGPT, come at me…Actually, at the moment, AI does an ok job of writing blogs if you just want content churn for SEO. If you want to engage, inform and stand above your competitors, pieces written by a human will always land better.
Getting great creative with AI isn’t easy.
We’ve produced some impressive work using AI as a tool, but it’s the result of a lot of trial and error. It’s become clear to us that effective use of AI is a skill in itself.
Has using AI saved us time? In some cases, yes. Does using AI lead to better output? Sometimes…We think it’s worth persevering as we’re all about the incremental gains, anything that leads to better results, no matter how marginal, is worth doing in our book.
To get the best creative whilst using AI you still need to know your craft. A good creative eye is needed to sift out the slop and all those skills the studio have spent years honing are just as important as ever. Long-term, we don’t see a future in which AI takes our jobs. However, we do see a potential problem where some brands try to cut corners and produce second-rate creative with AI. We pretty much guarantee these are the clients who will be wondering why their ads aren’t working…
Want creative that resonates on a human level? Take a look at our creative services page and find out more. Want to tap into some HI (human intelligence) to find out how to improve your creative? Get in touch.