With the use of AI becoming more universal, the creative process has shifted to become more focused and efficient. Checking in with Dan Nelson Jr., President and CEO of Nelson Schmidt Inc., we learn more about how this dynamic enables creatives to focus on creating meaningful connections through the work.
Does your agency encourage or deter the use of AI in your work? If applicable, how does your team integrate these tools into the creative process?
Nelson Schmidt Inc. encourages the use of AI in our work. We’re always striving to be at the forefront of technologies that positively impact the work we do for our clients and the bottom line of their businesses, which includes AI and its many iterations. But we also are very careful to responsibly use these technologies and follow any and all guidelines our clients have surrounding AI, including but not limited to keeping any client-sensitive data out of the large language models.
To date, we mostly use AI for information, insights and inspiration. That ranges from using Midjourney and other image-generation tools to mockup rough visuals for creative presentations to gleaning insights from ChatGPT, Google Bard and other text-generation tools for story framing and to help inform audience personas and buying journeys.
The one exception we’ve used for final work is Adobe Firefly’s generative fill tool, which is guaranteed to pull from only licensed assets, ensuring our agency and clients aren’t infringing on any usage rights.
We’re also starting to explore other closed-loop AI tools, like HubSpot’s ChatSpot.ai, which will help us to more quickly and efficiently do metrics reporting, add contacts, etc.
How does the accessibility of these tools affect the way it is used?
Many AI tools are in their infancy and/or beta stages and therefore are still offered for free. But many are starting to either require or offer paywall versions, which will greatly reduce their accessibility to the masses. Even more inaccessible are the large corporations and agencies building their own closed-loop AI systems. While these greatly benefit those entities, it further hinders the accessibility of AI to the majority of users. There is likely soon to be a “haves and have nots” scenario surrounding AI, with the most robust and helpful tools being off limits to everyone except those with the deepest pockets.
Over time, like with most technology, the price of entry will likely come down and the deepest, most helpful parts of AI will be more available to more people. So right now, we’re in a “honeymoon” phase where nearly everyone can access beta stages, then we’re likely to go further into the “closed” phase we’re seeing just starting now where only the biggest businesses will benefit the most, and then finally we’ll likely enter an “open” phase where most people will have accessibility.
As AI advances, how is the role of the creative redefined? In what ways do you see the landscape of creation changing/shifting in response to AI?
In many ways, the role of the creative will stay the same. Our most important job as creatives, regardless of the technology or tools we use, is to make meaningful connections with human beings, not to make ads. AI provides a wonderful new toolset that has the potential to enable creatives to more efficiently, more insightfully and, in some ways, even more creatively make those connections.
In essence, AI is like adding a new collaborative partner to the creative process. This is nothing new for creatives. Designers, art directors, copywriters, photographers and videographers have always done their work collaboratively, so the biggest difference will be adding a non-human collaborator to the mix. Sure, creatives will need to learn how to interface with the technology, whether that be perfecting their prompts or pushing the platforms past the homogenous results the technology often displays first, but in the end, AI will likely seamlessly integrate into creatives’ day-to-day work lives like any other collaborative partner does.
One big benefit specific to generative AI is that it offers creatives the opportunity to stay focused on the grander, more creative parts of their jobs, allowing the technology to do the more mundane and repetitive tasks. In this way, the landscape of creation is likely to shift more toward idea-driven work by humans and production-driven work by the technology. This has been happening for multiple decades as other creation software has gotten better and better, but AI will rapidly move creatives further out of the minutia of production and further into concept development and creative direction, while also providing the assessments of the strongest options and outputs.
If AI furthers its capability to create and think, what is a responsible way to use these new technologies?
While AI can “think,” most research shows it doesn’t necessarily think like a human. AI focuses on probabilities, using rules and patterns from prior works to solve new queries. Humans add more emotion and depth to that mix. People are wired as storytellers, weaving in and out of facts, truths and time. So, the first, and most responsible way to use AI is as a creative collaborator, not a replacement for human activity or oversight. If our main job as creatives is to help brands make meaningful connections with human beings, then we need to ensure the work we’re doing is “human.” That requires a close partnership with AI, using it for information, inspiration, insight and efficiency, but always guiding, tweaking and pushing the technology through the eyes, mind and soul of what makes us inherently human.
We also have to remember that AI is currently in a very immature state. It’s learning and growing at an astonishing rate, but it’s also often not accurate, fair or unbiased. By now, most of us have used ChatGPT or Google Bard and seen egregious inaccuracies or complete falsehoods. Or used Midjourney or DALL-E and seen harmful misrepresentations. It’s our responsibility as creatives to ensure everything we’re putting out in the world doesn’t create harm or bias. Right now, we cannot count on AI to hold itself to those same standards, so creatives must carefully guide the technology, rather than let it create solely of its own accord.
Another factor of responsible use of AI is its infringements on creators’ rights. Human creators, at least in the United States, have certain protections over their original work. Right now, AI isn’t just influenced and inspired by these protected creations, it often “steals” directly from them. We cannot let the ease, convenience and efficiency of AI violate the rights people have secured. So, again, it’s important for human creatives to guide the technology, take responsibility for its contributions and ensure the fairness of what’s ultimately being put into the world through a human decision. We’re starting to see some of the AI technology companies take this more into consideration themselves, too. Like Adobe Firefly, which only pulls its generative AI imagery from already licensed imagery in its own stock library. In fact, Adobe even includes an IP indemnity clause in Firefly use.
All in all, AI will have a massive and important impact on what we do. Just like the internet did. Just like mobile technology did. Just like what comes after AI will, too. But in the end, we’re still humans, and while immensely influenced by technology in so many ways, we’re also capable of thinking and acting far outside the bounds of what even the greatest technology can do. So the most responsible use of AI will ultimately come from humans doing what they do naturally – being more human.