The ‘Eh?’ to ‘Oh!’ of a CD x AI.

Recently, like everyone, I’ve been trying to filter through the band wagoning, straining to get my head around the facts and the fiction. What quickly hit home during the workshop was that transformational change is upon us now. And by ‘now’, I mean right now, not two or three years down the line.

But what will this mean for creative agencies like Kastner London?

Well, most of us are all too aware of the new tech’s threat to the role of people within the creative process. But what I also started to get to grips with last week was the potential for AI to rapidly transfer the creative function brand-side, where, in bullet-speed time, it will enable some clients to produce their own dystopian streams of content, making today’s always-on marketing feel nostalgically part time.

So, is this really the future of advertising?

For many brands and agencies, I suspect the answer is yes. But thankfully, there is also an alternative way this plays out.

Because brands and agencies that seek to disrupt, that courageously divide opinion and put a higher value on original thought, for these brands, there will still be a place for carbon-made thinkers like me.

At least, for the time being that is.

You see, while AI can currently harvest all the knowledge we’ve ever recorded, regurgitating that information at its prompter’s whim, AI can’t yet conjure up the unknown and undiscovered. We’ll still need wily ol’ copywriters, art directors, strategists and designers whenever we’re aiming to go there.

Which means, for both creatives and agencies alike, the choice today is clear.

If we want a future in this business, we simply have to create work that cuts through. There’ll be no hiding place in mediocrity anymore. That’s just the push of a button away. To survive, we’ll need to create added value. We’ll need to innovate, originate and imagine all kinds of craziness to come.

Either we respond to AI’s arrival by creating the same old, same old, meekly offering to save our clients some cash by using less people, or we grab hold of the silicon nettle and start cooking up the kind of work our clients could never see coming.

Perhaps as a nimble, tight-knit agency, the way ahead is more optimistic for Kastner London. For independent agencies like us, AI can level the playing field, enabling our crew to step up to others that might traditionally have muscled us out.

No matter what, I’m fully focussed of the mindset I want our team to have. Absolutely, we’re aware of the threat, but we’re going after the opportunities as well.

Which brings me to one final hope for the future, held for those who will undoubtably find themselves replaced by the machines.

Forgive me for getting all Jerry Springer on you here but, as a culture and a society, let’s remember to look after each other, working together to find new modes of productivity that will give meaning to this life we live.

Because as someone who grew up a lump of coal’s throw away from the old mining fields, I’ve seen what can happen to communities put out to pasture. And people deserve better than that.

The fight for our creative future is underway and, for strategically-minded agencies, it is by no means a losing battle. But there will be those that get caught in the crossfire and as AI adoption picks up pace, perhaps the most important challenge for those with a creative or entrepreneurial spirit is to dream up new ways for human beings to utilise their brains, harnessing our biological hunger for something better.

If we can do that, the new world we’re walking into may not be so dystopian at all.