Is AI quietly replacing the creative director?

“AI is going to take over everything.” Barely a day goes by without one hearing this.

It’s a sentiment that Mark Zuckerberg seemed to echo in a recent interview, where he described a future in which Meta replaces the entire agency structure, creative directors included.

One can almost imagine AI as a Skynet-like entity – efficient and ruthless, pitched in battle against the creative folks as they make a final stand for survival. Will the machines take over, or will humans prevail?

The reality, in all likelihood, is somewhere in the middle.

AI will certainly make good creative work accessible to a lot more advertisers, without the need for an agency at all. All of this at a fraction of the cost and time. You only have to look at how camera phones and apps turned everyone into a creator, or how Canva Code will enable anyone to be a developer.

AI is already writing copy and generating photos and videos, and getting better at it every day. It just seems a matter of time until it learns to think like a creative director and come up with creative ideas. The real question is, will it learn to come up with big ideas? The kind of ideas that haven’t been seen before? Never been tried before?

AI models today are based on data and patterns. They can scan, analyse, learn and create only from what is available to them. It can go through the entire body of work that Studio Ghibli or Wes Anderson has created, analyse the patterns, learn how to replicate their style, and then apply it to millions of images.

Or it can scan through billions of samples of advertising through the years to come up with a campaign idea (or ten). AI can do all that, in a matter of seconds and without ever getting tired.

But what it cannot do yet is look beyond the data. It cannot look at the same dots and connect them differently from how they have been. Isn’t that what we believe to be creative? What we call big ideas? To be able to see the same things as everyone else, hear the same stories as everyone else, experience the same emotions as everyone else; and yet put it all together in a way no one else has until now? In a way that makes you go, “Wow, I never saw it that way.”

That, is still something that’s very human.

But coming up with a big idea is just one part of it. Collaborating with a team and other partners to actually bring the idea to life is the other. That requires interpersonal skills.

AI isn’t a creative director’s nemesis. It’s a creative director’s biggest ally – a super talented team member. One of AI’s biggest strengths is the ability to analyse large datasets and identify patterns that humans might miss. This can be incredibly valuable in making creative decisions and optimising the work.

Rather than diminish their role, it will more likely augment it – allowing them to explore, experiment, iterate, optimise and create with more freedom. It’ll help them be more audacious and push the boat out further.

Is AI quietly replacing the creative director? Not just yet.

(The author is the chief creative officer of Infectious Advertising).