How AI Is Teaching Old Banners New Tricks

AI: Much has been written and spoken about the dangers of this technology in the wrong hands, not least in our industry. If we’re headed for an era of machine-made creativity, with artificial intelligence producing artistic output whilst we humans slog away on menial tasks behind the scenes, that’s a pretty bleak future. 

But is that truly the reality? For those of us who have been working with AI on the ground, getting into the nuts and bolts of how it can be put to use in our work, this doomsday prophecy doesn’t ring true. At least, not yet. 

That’s because we’re already seeing some positives emerging from what the AI revolution means in day-to-day terms. One surprising example of this is in digital performance creative, and how it’s increasing creative quality, consistency, and efficiency. 

For many of our clients at Five by Five, we’ve been using AI to find efficiencies within our production process. That’s often a case of consulting with Chat GPT, but it’s a very human-led process: You need to know how to ask the right questions and how to shepherd the AI towards the correct answers, after all. The result has been, thanks to co-operation between human and machine, that we’re able to emulate high-quality moving graphics and imagery in a 150kb banner. 

In other words, we’re improving visual quality and reducing file sizes at the same time. It’s a kind of ‘best of both worlds’ digital magic trick, which is also the catalyst for some interesting knock-on effects. 

Giving ‘Efficiency’ a Rebrand

In our industry, ‘efficiency’ can sometimes be a bit of a loaded term. It conjures up connotations of compromise, or of sacrifices in creative quality. But what I’ve seen from AI so far is a more honest and genuine kind of efficiency - simply getting us to a high-quality result with greater speed. 

When it comes to efficiency, our focus has always been on reducing the labour on processes and applying it to the true value-driver: Creativity. AI has been helping us take a fresh look at our processes and refine them even more, carving out even more space to play creatively within the same formats. 

But, thanks to AI’s help with coding, virtually no compromises need to be made. It makes for more consistency in a brand’s visual language no matter the destination, and more confidence that every ad you create is going to be seen as intended.

Making Space to be Human

Let’s be clear: You need to know how to do this. There isn’t a button you can press marked ‘AI’ which makes all of this instantaneous. It takes human expertise and vision to guide the technology towards the right solution. But there’s no doubt that this is a process made much more efficient - even made possible at all - thanks to AI. 

When we think about AI, we tend to fixate on the big picture - robots taking our jobs, computers making art, and the potential of a cyborg superspecies (okay, maybe that last one is just me). But these examples show how it’s the details, the small things which add up to something meaningful, where AI is going to have an impact. 

Perhaps, then, the AI revolution isn’t going to be about generative art and robots becoming creative directors. Instead of the front-end of final creative output, maybe the biggest impact AI will have is in the back-end processes that allow organic creativity to shine more brightly. 

So maybe AI isn’t going to replace us. Maybe it will - whisper it - help us? 

Only time will tell if that’s excessively wishful thinking or not. But hey, it’s nice that we’ve already got some evidence to support it.