Artificial intelligence has been a topic of discussion for a long time, with many predicting it could spell the end of humanity. But in recent years, AI has become more of a reality, with its use in many business sectors growing by a whopping 270% over the past four years.
It’s most visible in industries such as transportation, manufacturing, financial services, and security, as well as healthcare, insurance, telecommunications, energy, and aviation. Now, it’s also making its way into the creative industry, which has understandably been met with a mix of excitement and trepidation.
We’ve seen technology’s impact on the print industry, with content moving online and primarily consumed through our smart devices. More recently, we’ve seen the productization of websites and digital assets with off-the-shelf templates available for a monthly subscription. There’s no doubt that our industry will be affected by AI.
AI has manifested itself in the form of creative ‘tools’. Image generation, for example, allows you to enter a text description and get a realistic image in seconds. The same goes for text generation, which can produce a 500-word piece for your blog with a few search parameters.
While these tools are still clunky, they are seriously impressive. But before we dive in, we should ask ourselves when, where, and how we should use AI to suit us and our clients best.
It’s worth reminding ourselves what it means to be creative. Since the first images were painted onto a cave wall or carved into stone, creativity has been about storytelling. A human story. Born from shared emotions and experiences.
The creative process involves collaboration, sharing, and truly knowing and understanding our audiences. It’s always been spearheaded by people who think differently, the quirky visionaries and sometimes neurodiverse among us.
We don’t need AI to make art. We need AI to write emails, clean the house, and deliver groceries so humans can make more art. We need to think harder about how we can work alongside this technology, streamlining and refining the creative process so we can use it to free us up to do what we do best. Intelligent, distinctive, and effective ideas will always be a human endeavor.
