AI in the Creative Industry
Our latest Brandland event was all about demystifying the world of AI, and asking what does the ever evolving technology mean for creative businesses and practitioners in practice.
Image: Emma Wharton Love
The talk was led by Jules Love, Co-Founder of Spark AI, a consultancy specialising in working with creative agencies and brand teams on AI implementation.
Jules set the scene by giving some examples of how big brands are using AI to their advantage. For example, Diarrablu use AI generated imagery of their potential products to test demand before any garments are produced. This has allowed them to create 60% less waste, by only manufacturing products they know their customers want.
Jules then focused on how agencies and creative practitioners can work with AI to improve their productivity, while avoiding common pitfalls and still maintaining strong human creativity in the process. Some of the key takeaways were:
Treating AI as a 'brilliant assistant' which you should ask to help with tasks, not do your job. Only you have the full contextual knowledge needed to do your whole job well
When considering whether AI is suited to a task, you should think about whether you can quickly assess the quality of the output, whether it has the required context and what will happen if it's wrong
Using AI is like "talking to a highly educated and opinionated colleague," but one that knows little about your job. It can come up with ideas, but you need to use your contextual knowledge to evaluate if they're useful
To teach an AI model what good work looks like, you should show it good and bad examples – this is often more effective than giving it rules
It is possible to automate processes and still maintain human creativity – Jules gave an example of a copywriting agency who, rather than using AI to automate their writing, have used it to automate all the other stuff (like interrogating a brief, research and reviewing)
"There's a lot of talk of efficiency," but it's important to remember that clients come to agencies for their brilliant ideas
Jules' talk was followed by a Q&A with Jules, Spark AI Co-Founder and CEO Emma Wharton Love and UnitedUs Co-Founder and Creative Director Luke Taylor. Luke shared some really innovative work his team is doing, combining AI skills with human creativity, and spoke about how the creatives in his agency with the most experience and knowledge produce the best work with AI. This brought up the question of how young people entering the industry can build up their knowledge and experience in the AI world.
While everyone said there is no clear answer to that question yet, Emma spoke about the need for manager to find new and different ways of nurturing new team members, while Luke spoke about how he is teaching his team new skills. For example, as emails are less frequently read now, his team have trained in pitching skills to help them verbally present their work to clients.
Overall it was a fascinating evening, where attendees were encouraged to consider AI in new ways. Thank you to our speakers, our compere Hayley Edwards and our hosts Fuel Studios.