Breaking AI stereotypes—why the tech is not a threat to advertising, but a tool for creativity

If you want to know how to get the role of AI in advertising wrong, look no further than “I, Robot.” In this 2004 movie, a detective investigating a sentient robot for murder eventually realizes that VIKI, the central AI commanding all robots, has decided that to save humanity from itself it needs to take over. Its ambition is no less than to replace us. Artificial intelligence has had a bad reputation in movies dating back at least to Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis.” Some movies, including “The Matrix,” “The Terminator” and “2001 A Space Odyssey,” portray AI as a malignant force that seeks to dominate humans. Others, such as “Her,” “Blade Runner” and “Transcendence,” give it an unnerving and destructive role somewhere between human and machine. Unsurprisingly, as new generative AI tools have come online, people have marveled at their humanlike capabilities—and reacted with dread. In advertising, you might think we’d be immune to this kind of thing, but as we witnessed at Cannes Lions this year, doubts about AI are dominating conversations and obscuring a more important role that AI can play as a facilitator of creativity. AI is, of course, nothing new in our field. We’ve been using it for years for chatbots, targeting, personalization, optimization and many other things. And we will certainly use the new generative tools to do that even more. Web3 and metaverse marketing blog Catch up on the latest virtual experiences and more Click here We can also use AI for creative purposes—and by this, I mean groundbreaking creative—the kind that makes a real impact. But not in the way most people are worrying about. In fact, we must stop applying past paradigms to new technological developments, which is always a strong tendency. Anyone who was around during the early web will remember that most corporate websites were originally digital versions of brochures, with features including splash (cover) pages that seem silly in retrospect. That’s because we applied old ideas to new technology. Likewise, we can’t jump to conclusions about what AI can or can’t do for our industry. We have to and work with it, rather than hypothesize about whether it could eventually do the job of human creatives. Generative AI can produce low-level creative work quickly and efficiently. But groundbreaking creativity and big creative ideas require a different process, one that’s slow and unpredictable—and should be. It needs us to make unusual connections between concepts and come up with novel ideas and solutions. For that, we don’t need the speed and predictability of generative AI; we need time, space, sticky notes, whiteboards and walks in nature. Not more tech, but less. At the same time, we also know that much of the work we do is not creative. At agencies, we consume our days in research, meetings, pitch decks, PowerPoint presentations and all of the other mundane tasks we often find ourselves doing. All that makes it difficult to find those quiet, contemplative moments away from technology that we need to be able to imagine the world as different from what it is. That’s where generative AI can be extremely helpful. It has great potential to clear up the necessary but less creative tasks that take up the majority of our time. A good example of this is a new feature in Microsoft Office that allows you to create PowerPoint decks out of Word documents. It can get us from a brief to a presentation extremely quickly. What’s left over, of course, is something invaluable: time. The time we need to throw pencils at the ceiling; drink too many cups of coffee; and pore over art, science and culture to come up with those unique insights that make for truly memorable ads. When it comes to Hollywood, it’s not surprising that the focus is on the drama and the malevolent side of robotics: At the end of the day, no one is likely to flock to a movie about responsible AI. Yet ChatGPT is not VIKI, and the baggage we are carrying around culturally and collectively is not helpful in realizing its value. Perhaps the movie business itself can be the biggest ally of AI’s potential. After all, Hollywood has been a front-runner when it comes to efficiently using AI across all facets of filmmaking, such as the incredible progress in animation. So, Hollywood understands the power of the computer as a tool like no one else. We just need to find the right balance, as highlighted by the ongoing writer’s strike. But I don’t think we’re far from the day we’ll see the first inspiring blockbuster movie co-written by a brilliant human scriptwriter and generative AI. And that’s exactly how we need to look at AI for our industry too. It’s not THE END. Subscribe to Ad Age Sign up now for the latest industry news and analysis Click here

Breaking AI stereotypes—why the tech is not a threat to advertising, but a tool for creativity

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