The industry is rapidly shifting to keep up with new innovations, and AI is no exception. Along with the excitement, there is a level of (understandable) fear of the possibilities this technology brings. Checking in with INNOCEAN Berlin's Strategy Director, Jörn Ballentin, we chatted about AI making the creative process more efficient, the accessibility it lends to creatives with less opportunities or resources and opening the door for more cutting-edge work.
Does your agency encourage or deter the use of AI in your work? If applicable, how does your team integrate these tools into the creative process?
We don’t believe that you can ignore AI. The technology is here to stay and will profoundly change our industry. So, we really encourage our teams to experiment and use AI not just to be more efficient, but to create bolder and better work.
There are three key use cases for us at this moment: firstly, AI can help us quickly visualize and explore a much bigger number of ideas during creative concepting. Secondly, it can help us dream bigger and create work that wouldn’t have been possible before. (Think of Nike’s ‘Never done evolving’ where they pitch a 17-year-old Serena Williams against Serena Williams today. You couldn’t do this without the help of AI in data analysis and visualization.) And thirdly, AI can help us generate campaign assets for various channels, formats and markets much more efficiently, so creatives can focus on what they are really here for – the idea.
How does the accessibility of these tools affect the way it is used?
Someone clever said that AI doesn’t democratize creativity but rather democratizes creative execution. So, making the tools accessible to anyone anywhere will allow creativity to thrive. With the help of AI, anyone with a creative idea will be able to bring it to life and we will hopefully see more and more ideas that are not just coming from the big agencies with big client budgets.
The openness of tools such as ChatGPT will also enable tinkering and experimentation, which allows people to invent new use cases and applications for AI. It’s a bit like the early days of the internet where no one has a clue, but everyone is excited (or terrified) about the new possibilities that AI will bring about.
As AI advances, how is the role of the creative redefined? In what ways do you see the landscape of creation changing/shifting in response to AI?
One thing is for sure: creatives will stay creatives, as we will still need ideas that make people feel something or that disrupt what everyone else is doing. AI isn’t particularly great at either of those things.
But execution is a different matter. There are already incredibly powerful generative AI tools that can do jobs that would have taken hours in a matter of seconds. Think retouching, mock-ups, basic design work and even voice-overs. So, creatives really need to focus on original thinking and crafting. You either have ideas, or you’re out.
AI will also lead to more creative generalists who no longer have to specialize in a certain skill. With the help of generative AI, designers can easily branch into UX without knowing a line of code. Copywriters will be able to visualize their ideas or edit films. As long as you have an idea and you can direct or prompt the machine, the technical skill will become more and more irrelevant.
If AI furthers its capability to create and think, what is a responsible way to use these new technologies?
There are obvious risks in generative AI technology. If we can no longer differentiate reality from fake, the door is open for manipulation and misinformation. Spotify for instance is developing hyper realistic AI-generated voices that mimic podcast hosts or Hollywood celebrities. This will not only lead to the shameful death of voice acting but will also make it impossible to know what’s real. Similar to genetically modified food, we should be transparent about generative AI and mark its use.
The other risk is copyright because generative AI is great at mimicking other people’s work. If not properly regulated, there is a real danger that original creators will miss out on royalties, when we create work that is similar to theirs. And there’s equally a risk that we can’t copyright our own thinking, if it was brought to life by a machine that was created by a 3rd party (such as OpenAI) based on work that someone else has done.
Let’s always be sensitive to this and make sure that creativity is properly rewarded.