AI… it may be the buzzword to end all buzzwords but it is so much than that. Whether we like it or not, AI is the future of all aspects of society. It presents countless opportunities, but with it comes great resistance.
AI is a concept that has existed, muddled by science fiction, for decades. Through countless narratives, AI has been portrayed as everything from benevolent companions to ruthless overlords capable of transcending human limitations or triggering catastrophic outcomes. This broad spectrum of portrayals has fostered both fascination and apprehension among the public, fuelling debates on AI technology’s ethical implications and future trajectories. On another level, AI is met with resistance from those who fear the loss of human jobs and the death of true creativity.
This World AI Day, B&T chatted with a panel of experts from the tech and creative industries about how they use AI and how businesses can overcome an AI-resistant market and workforce.
So is the rise of AI the death of creativity or the future of the industry? The experts weigh in below!
All the good!
AI offers brilliant ways to streamline and speed up working processes, creating a more efficient business and workforce. We asked a panel of experts how their businesses are currently utilising AI to improve efficiency, customer experience, decision-making, and operations.
Tim Sharp, Founder & Principal, GEN8
GEN8 helps businesses build a Generative AI strategy connecting broad objectives (from developing strategy itself to improving marketing) to five main types of model (from language to video generation). These building blocks then get road-tested across dozens of projects, from market research to translations; identifying what works, and what doesn’t. For a recent marketing client, this approach saves up to 340 hours weekly across 12 use cases – from competitive analysis to template automation.
At the same time, I’m trying to build an AI-first business. Which means using as much of it as possible, separating fact from fiction. I spend up to a third of my overheads on Generative AI subscriptions, for instance, but cancel more than half of these after month one. The result though is a more effective one-person business; from strategy development to negotiating contracts. Much of this is powered by LLMs (Claude Sonnet, for example), alongside specialist AI products from the likes of Descript or Topaz Labs.
Bob Connelly, Director of Generative AI, Now We Collide
At Now We Collide, we have a dedicated AI innovation division called Collide-AI which has allowed us to adopt a “strategy of exploration” that examines all day-to-day tasks through the lens of how AI can augment, automate or improve business or production processes. This mindset is now ingrained in our company culture, and we apply it to every brief, task, and interaction.
One of the primary areas where we use GenAI is tackling everyday tasks, such as enhancing the process of visual concept development for pitch decks. By deploying Large Language Models (LLMs) and RAG Stacks, we have significantly streamlined our creative process, saving hours, if not days, of tedious work. This not only frees up our team to focus on more strategic and creative aspects of their roles but also serves as a proving ground for automation techniques that can be leveraged and provided to current and future clients.
Stu Hipwell, creative director, The Company We Keep
In our creative studio, using AI is already a day to day occurrence. We use AI image generation to visualise creative concepts. This has saved us hours in mocking up creative concepts, What used to take hours now takes us minutes. But the real advantage is not about time and cost saving, it’s about what this new found efficiency enables. With more time, we can explore creative ideas further. What if we did this or added that? With the implementation of AI into our studio, creativity has been the real winner.
Jay Morgan, Chief Creative Office & Founder of POPULA
We use gen-AI to communicate ideas better and faster, and in that use case it’s been brilliant. And it allows us to be more nimble than the traditional creative approach by taking advantage of new creative technologies. At this stage most brands don’t want AI-generated creative in the end product, and as an agency who cares about craft neither do we. Yet.
In a recent example we used gen-AI to generate a hero concept image for a very unique idea – a stock image wouldn’t do and a quick photoshop wouldn’t have been as convincing.
This helped communicate the vision throughout the creative and production process and gave everyone a northstar to aim for. Creatively you can develop visual ideas quicker by iterating on them in almost real time which hasn’t been possible until now.
Blair Ellis, Account Director, Hopeful Monsters
Acting as our co-pilot, AI has become the powerful side-kick we wish we all had years ago.
Providing our teams at Hopeful Monsters with a set of tools to replace the repetitive, manualness of tasks, we’re providing more headspace to dive deeper into the intricacies of the creative process.
Leveraging the world’s knowledge within models such as Chat-GPT, we’ve built frameworks that allow our team to establish the fundamentals and sift out the expected ideas, so we can focus our attention on getting to more unexpected insights and ideas.
We’re also combining these insights with advanced Natural Language Processing (NLP) engines to transform billions of unstructured data points into actionable insights. Taking away the heavy lifting of data analysis to provide predictive trend and sentiment analysis at scale within a fraction of the time.
Ultimately, our view is that AI allows us to focus more time on the details that makes good work great.
“I’m afraid I can’t do that, Dave”: The AI Resistance!
Despite all these benefits, the rise of AI has been hotly disputed and is met with a lot of resistance from all sectors. From the fear of AI replacing jobs to data privacy and bias considerations, there is great uncertainty around this rising technology. So how do the experts weigh in? How do we acknowledge the resistance while embracing all the tech’s benefits?
Tim Sharp, Founder & Principal, GEN8
I wouldn’t characterise ‘resistance’ as a precursor to adoption. The hype around Generative AI, in particular, is out of control and so there’s an urgent need for an objective, measured approach. Which means the first thing is always a reality check. What is this, what is it not?
It’s a charged environment, understandably so. Automation looms. AI training data will be one of the biggest copyright issues of our time. Energy consumption is worrying. And while there’s plenty in our day-to-day that could do with an efficiency boost, it’s not a fait accompli that Generative AI will – or even should – live up to the hype. And so, for all GEN8 clients, we try to take the FOMO out of it before upending strategy or going all-in.
What I do find, however, is that by getting teams hands-on and scrutinising use cases together, day-to-day usage often goes up. From here it’s about governance, where we use a 20-point risk-assessment, covering Responsible AI principles (like bias and transparency) through to Security & Reputational threats (like data security, or deepfakes). In the spirit of responsible AI, we also make this framework – RISQ – available for free.
Bob Connelly, Director of Generative AI, Now We Collide
Encourage AI exploration at all levels of your organisation by providing access to a wide range of AI tools and offer training. Foster a culture that celebrates the efficiencies and successes discovered through AI adoption.
Stu Hipwell, creative director, The Company We Keep
You need to be careful with how you implement AI into your processes. As mentioned, we use AI primarily as a concepting tool. We don’t use AI as a finished art tool. This is to protect our clients from copyright concerns around AI and to be frank, from keeping our creative looking generic. Let’s face it, everyone is jumping on the AI bandwagon. Ai imagery is everywhere. Another thing you need to be aware of, if you’re not paying for a private AI image generation server – anything you upload to your AI image generator server can be searched, reinterpreted and used by anyone. This is a real risk for you and clients.
Jay Morgan, Chief Creative Office & Founder of POPULA
I’m sure our future AI overlords will appreciate our use of terms like ‘overcoming resistance to AI’! In reality your team is using AI whether you like it or not.
Like all new tools there is an initial level of resistance as companies scramble to understand how to utilise it – are we too early or too late? Start by looking at your department’s processes and see which areas can be supercharged with AI – hint: not every process will be quicker/better with AI. Don’t force a square peg into a round hole just cause it’s trendy.
At this stage gen-AI is in its infancy, so have an outcomes-driven not process-driven focus. Until all the big software players give us useful AI that the average person can use, it may take your team longer and the quality of the output will be questionable.
It’s moving incredibly fast, so have someone in your team take on the responsibility of being the AI evangelist, staying up to date with the latest and looking at how it can help your process.
Blair Ellis, Account Director, Hopeful Monsters
Everyone has an opinion on AI.
Often those who have a negative or hesitant attitude toward the concept of using AI is the result of a knowledge gap. Not knowing what it is, how it can be used and why it should be integrated as part of existing workflows – not replace it.
Early on at Hopeful Monsters, we found success in tackling the hard conversations head-on through an all-agency session that aimed to demystify AI. Setting the tone and framing of the conversation allowed us to establish a positive narrative that encouraged the team to explore the possibility of what’s possible.
We understand that trying to maintain engagement with every staff member is an uphill battle, so we’ve now leaned into empowering a handful of brand champions to drive the biggest impact. Leveraging the personal interest and curiosity of people to encourage them to test, learn and develop ways of integrating various AI tools across the agency.
At the end of the day, it’s imperative to acknowledge that not everyone is going to be thrilled by the concept and use of AI. However, the power of having brand champions advocating for and creating use cases alongside their peers cannot be understated. These ongoing micro discussions and tests of tools are fueling our agency’s curiosity and implementation of AI at scale.
