How not to kill a great idea with AI

AI, done right, has the power to make your creative more valuable than ever. But lazy AI might just kill it, says Rob King, CEO and investor, Distortion Creative Group.

Across the creative industries, AI is a floating spectre that haunts pitch decks, scripts, production flows and even creative brainstorming sessions.

But, while the medium is still novel enough for Coca-Cola to use as the attention-grabbing hook for its Christmas campaign, sooner or later we face a daunting reality… people will just assume you’ve used it anyway.

The problem, as a recent piece by Mitun Thaker alluded to, ‘Taste is no longer about what you own; it is about what you choose’ proves ‘AI slop’ is very real, but it needn't rule out strategic use of the medium.

Respect your audience

Audiences are fine-tuned to understand nuance, even from a young age. Indeed, whose kids weren’t transfixed to E.T, Toy Story, or ‘that’ Guinness ad.

This near-universal appreciation of quality is telling, and, if you later discovered that the creative teams behind these classics had used AI to create this content, the fact is, few would have cared. Your jaw has already dropped, and your tears have already been shed.

Yet, when it comes to achieving ‘the end result’, audiences are right to think that AI can be the main offender. As ever, the remedy lies in discernment. Yes, human discernment.

Fear sameness

Despite its very real limitations, AI is far more likely to speed up and improve what you are doing if you are pointing in the right direction. And the foundation your content sits on remains good storytelling.

Real discussions, face to face, that eke out real emotions remain a necessary step - whether that’s with audiences, CEOs or staff. 

Perception, even of fairly everyday products and services, can be surprisingly nuanced, and the difference between a brand knowing what it does, and why it does it, comes across in the creative.

AI can be useful in generating ideas, but you have to understand why these ideas work, and be open to adapting and progressing them if they are going to land. Just inking a sheet of A4 off the printer before a creative brainstorming session probably isn’t going to cut it.

Similarly, scripting should generally be a personal and bespoke affair, riffing on the themes and insights under discussion, and bringing in a bit of yourself, and what you know has worked previously, to the table.

AI, again, can give pointers and speed things up. But trusting your instincts and adding a little of the unexpected is the path to content that resonates deeply.

The same idea goes for production. Let AI tools automate certain specifics, like backgrounds, plants, and locations, but even when tweaking the smaller details, think before you act. The more elements you cut, paste and autogenerate, the more you lose control… and the more your audience is likely to get lost too.

The danger comes when technology becomes the idea, rather than supporting the idea. Audiences don’t show up to be impressed by tooling. They show up to feel something.

Just as it takes a human to understand the nuances of written communication, it takes a human to intuit and contextually apply what will be shared, what physical and digital elements will have a visceral impact, and how to seed a bit of unpredictability.

Performative AI

Most conversations around AI start and end with what can be replaced, reduced, or sped up. But even in a short email or text message, you can pick up on the heart or personality behind the message. The same applies to all content.

Our stance is clear: if AI isn’t genuinely improving the experience or workflow, it’s just noise. 

Observant readers, of course, will point out that ‘improve’ is subjective, and they’d be right... because that’s where you come in.

Lead image credit: iStock Jolygon