Creativity has survived every tech shift and GenAI is simply the next evolution

Look, mom, no hands!  

There’s a lot of chatter around Gen Ai with regards to advertising, and while the jury’s still out, I feel compelled to share my perspective.

In the early 90s, my dad owned a small advertising agency. I still remember observing the process of creating a layout: it was first hand-drawn on a sheet of paper and then carefully inked in. Once that was done, a large, noisy contraption called the airbrush was brought into play (yes, the airbrush is now digital and on Photoshop). It was basically a pen tool connected by a wire to a noisy compressor that would rattle, hiss, and complain for all the hours it took to colour the drawing in. Each time the airbrush artist needed to add another colour to the layout, the airbrush needed to be disconnected, cleaned, and then refilled manually with the desired colour, which also had to be mixed precisely to arrive at the desired shade. Once that was done, the layout would need a few hours to dry. By this point, the poor client servicing executive would be a bundle of anxious energy. Five coffees later, the typesetter steps in. His job was to manually cut out letters from words in printed magazines and then paste them on the layout to form words and sentences. And then magically, a day or so later, a single layout was born.


And then came the internet, Photoshop, Corel Draw, and digital cameras. A shift so monumental that the need for airbrush artists and manual typesetters was over. And did that change the creative landscape? Oh boy, you bet. And I dare I say for the better. We as creators became faster, better, and could express ourselves more. But wait, don’t fret for the airbrush artists and typesetters; most of them adapted. They had to.

So here’s the question - did any of those innovations ruin creativity or make it less fun? No. In fact, they gave more people the opportunity to create.

So that’s my argument when people cry this new paradigm shit we’re experiencing right now around media and Generative Ai. AI will not take away jobs, AI will not destroy creativity and certainly won’t make everyone an overnight creative genius. It will just level the playing field by giving highly creative people the ammunition that was once the sole property of global networks and established legacy creatives.

The playing field is now leveled and the best will use this as a way to finally show the world what they’re made of. Ladies and gentlemen, the zeitgeist is real and the revolution is being televised.

The author, Carl Savio, is a seasoned creative director and technologist with over 20 years of advertising experience and is the founder of Artificial Labs.