Generative artificial intelligence: Ally of creativity or human enemy?

Brands are testing generative AI tools such as ChatGPT and taking creative artefacts influenced by the tool to market. What does it mean for the future of creativity?

Is this the lunchbox of the future? TBWA Sydney's AI-prompted work for Golden Circle

ChatGPT’s growing mainstream use has sparked fresh conversation about the role of generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools in creativity, advertising and communication more broadly.

The platform has found its way into conversations around the world over the past two months – not just in adland but at many levels of business across a range of sectors.

At Davos in January, ChatGPT was said to have dominated conversations, as it has elsewhere, from news headlines to internal company discussions. In that same month, Microsoft announced the extension of its multi-year, multi-billion dollar investment in ChatGPT’s owner, OpenAI.

Then in early February, Microsoft integrated a more sophisticated version of ChatGPT to its search engine Bing, making the tool further accessible.

Generative AI tools are being tested and in some cases used by many businesses thanks, in part, to ChatGPT’s launch in November, which made the tool widely available to anyone with a wi-fi or mobile data connection. It has since been catapulted further into the mainstream lexicon.

In the advertising and marketing industry, creative artefacts and brand-led content that are either prompted or shaped by generative AI are not new to the market. But the tool’s use is increasing.

TBWA Sydney’s recent campaign for Golden Circle’s new product, Refreshers, is just one example.

This lunch box was designed by Connor and AI

It took a traditional product launch and updated it using AI generated imagery from MidJourney, a similar generative AI tool that creates images from text-based cues.

As part of its response to Golden Circle’s brief, TBWA asked families to imagine the “lunch box of the future”, and then fed the answers to MidJourney to generate a visual representation of their ideas.

“It’s a fresh take on the ‘25 words or less’ promos of yesteryear,” said Russ Tucker, executive creative director of PR and earned at TBWA Sydney.

But human-led creativity has also driven the process: “The results have been visually interesting and engaging, now we are in production making an actual physical lunch box,” said Mr Tucker.

Some industry leaders have highlighted the positive potential for generative AI to help automate tedious and time-consuming rote tasks to allow creativity to thrive. This however, may place a more pronounced responsibility on those who wield its power to check its accuracy and relevance.

“AI works by ingesting what is already known to create a mash-up of what might be considered new. I think it is fair to say that AI can offer up new perspectives and insights, but I think it is a stretch to say that it can generate ‘new’ ideas. An idea needs to have cultural relevance to really land in culture and resonate with people,” said Mr Tucker.

“Data is not an insight. You can have all the data and information in the world but without the understanding of human behaviour and cultural nuances, it will be very unlikely to hit upon a true insight.

“AI is also void of personal taste. It’s lacking human experience. It’s unlikely to become the next Banksy without understanding the emotions that feed creative rebellion. Right now ChatGPT can provide writing prompts to a certain extent. It can certainly generate ad words, automate SEO and do all those wonderfully tedious things,” he said.

This lunch box was designed by Charlie and AI

Leo Burnett’s national experience design director Chris Jovanov said the agency was also approaching generative AI with a similar awareness of its potential and pitfalls, but is keen to embrace new technology and the human-led creative potential it could unlock in the future.

“It‘s pretty much universally agreed that ChatGPT is an amazing tool that can help deal with the mundane and enhance the creative process. But as the technology behind generative AI continues to mature, we can expect its role within agencies to mature with it,” he said.

“We are already starting to see various AI media working together in unified systems allowing for more complex content like generative video and graphic/web design layouts.”

As an agency, Leo Burnett is still in the process of figuring out exactly how to make the tool an official part of its workflow, but recognises its ability to complement creative work.

“That said, we view ChatGPT and generative AI as valuable creative companions that enhance the creative process rather than replacing it,” he said. “As the technology continues to mature, we‘ll continually evaluate how we can best use these tools to create great content.”

Once again, human judgment and quality control is likely to be key to the successful, responsible and efficient application of generative AI to creative strategies and outputs. According to Mr Jovanov, when used responsibly, the tool could even be a creative ally.

“However in the future we expect agencies and clients to try to gain a competitive edge by building on top of these tools with their own specialised datasets. In doing so, they’ll be able to generate creative outputs that are totally unique.”