Agencies on AI "Back Foot", Creative Process Will Shift to "Shipping"

Agencies are on the “back foot” with AI because they don’t understand the technology’s unpredictability, and so have made “knee jerk” promises of cost savings to clients, according to AI expert and The Sweetshop’s global head of innovation, Colin Davis.

“Particularly around a lot of the big holding companies, there were some very early conversations around where they thought AI would be able to generate value, and what it would be able to replace,” the London-based exec told LBB on a trip to Sydney this week.

“And therefore, they set expectations with the clients around what that looked like. And from what I've heard, it was a quantification around that sort of 20 or 30% [mark] and so therefore now everyone's on the back foot of, what does that look like?

“The only lever people can see is doing more with less. It's very knee jerk. And the most obvious way to do that is in terms of the pricing of things ... in general, it feels like a panicky response, but because I don't feel like a lot of the agencies are prepared on how to work with these kinds of technologies.”

Colin previously spent eight years at Nexus Studios, where he worked on ‘Adoptable’ with Colenso BBDO and Pedigree. He joined The Sweetshop in June in a newly-created role that involves him working with directors, agencies, and marketers to analyse where AI can relieve production budgetary pressures, while preserving the control clients want or need. He uses the example of a hammer: using such a tool the same way each time produces the same result. The same isn’t true of AI platforms.

If an ad contains a horse, but the colour doesn’t matter, or a non-specific mountain range, relinquishing control to an AI makes sense. A brand’s mascots, products, colours, and key messaging are elements that require human craft, though.

“What I feel is that agencies just don't know ... a lot of that sense of control and predictability that clients and agencies are looking for, AIs are just not able to deliver that. Not that they're not valuable, but that expectation of replacement and that they will be error-proof -- that level of stuff is just not part of what has been borne out.”

Given that uncertainty, during pitches and the pre-production process, Colin’s team performs tests to scrutinise whether AI is “fit for purpose” and ensure “everybody feels comfortable going into the shoot.”

‘Automation’, ‘Tool’, ‘AI’ Are the Wrong Words: A Linguistic Issue

Part of the issue, he argued, is one of language. Last week, Colin joined LBB, AKQA, and The Sweetshop’s inaugural edition of the Q&A Club in Auckland. During a panel discussion, he criticised terms like ‘automation’, ‘tool’, and even ‘AI’ itself, claiming they are too broad, and make having “a conversation about AI … really hard.”

“The word ‘tool’ is problematic,” he explained, precisely because AI platforms are unreliable. Tools like a camera, knife, or hammer, are consistent in their effect.

Marketers and agencies haven’t yet understood the same isn’t true of AI and so “have this expectation and have been sold promises that you can type in 17 words and get an advert out of Sora.

“Yes, you can get something out of 17 words. Whether it's going to be fit-for-purpose is different. I think we're feeling some of that realisation of the tension between the promises and the inconsistencies of artificial intelligence.”

‘Automation’, meanwhile, implies a lack of thinking, “and in clients' desire to automate things, it means that you're taking intent and decisions out of it.” he added.

“Particularly in the creative industry, that's a bad thing. Efficiency and automation are not synonymous, but I think a lot of clients think they are.”

And ‘AI’ is too broad a term, according to Colin. In the same way as “a pogo stick, a bicycle, a rocket, and a boat” are all modes of transportation, “if we just talked about transportation, it doesn't give you any insight as to which one I should use and how to use it.”

Brands Should Steer Clear of Synthetic Humans

Asked about advertising’s trust problem, and whether AI will mean well-crafted work is assumed to be artificially generated, Colin suggested using AI for backgrounds and cartoon-like characters, versus attempting to create deceptively-accurate humans.

“If you look at 'Polar Express' and those kinds of digital humans, they've never looked real. In my mind, there's never been a CG [computer-generated] human that has felt believable,” he said.

“The trust issues are much easier to navigate when you take out the authenticity of a human versus the surroundings, because you've always had green screens.

“Reputationally, staying away from synthetic humans, at least for now, is good … if you're in this space of presenting this as a human and it's not, then eventually you'll get caught out, and it will be a much, much bigger reputational issue than if you had just said, 'This is a cartoon character. This is our avatar.'”

That’s consistent with arguments made by his fellow panellists Tara McKenty, AKQA’s AUNZ chief creative officer, and Anthony Dever, TikTok AUNZ’s head of creative lab, at last week’s Auckland event. Tara expressed concern about digital twins, and Anthony encouraged the industry to think of AI influencers as cartoons.

Creative Process Will Become Like “Shipping”, More Iterative

The Sweetshop set up AI creative studio, The Gardening Club, in response to the threat AI poses to traditional production processes. Giving Colin an ‘innovation’ job title, versus an ‘AI’ job title, ensures the business can be proactive and inventive around whatever comes next.

“Innovation is AI in this moment in time, but then there will be, what does this look like in headsets, or what is this like in out-of-home, or what does this look like in other contexts, like in a gaming and Fortnite kind of space? Because I think these AIs will allow you to mix media at a much higher fidelity than you'd been able to do before.”

With AI reshaping the production process and production companies, and clients demanding ads that are made quicker and cost less, will the creative process continue to matter? Colin believes big brand work will continue to demand craft because it relies on emotion to be effective, but performance marketing will be ‘shipped’ like tech products.

“If you look at Spotify on your phone, they're on version 937 of the app, because they're constantly iterative,” he said.

“I think [the creative process will be more] iterative and bit-by-bit moving forward, and it will be less big ... shipping something, or having to go to air, probably won't feel like such a reaching the top of the mountain [moment].”

But for “core human moments, you'll still have that value of the director.”

“A lot of the transactional marketing and sales-driven stuff is like withdrawing from the bank account that's been built up from the brand building. If all you're doing is just withdrawing, and you're not reinvesting, eventually ... these messages don't mean anything.”

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Read Colin's recent op-ed: Damn The Race to the Bottom: AI Shouldn't Be Cost-Cutting Machine​