Matt Moss on AI as the Tool for Idea Expression

With over 15 years of experience, Matt Moss has worked over two continents across dozens of global campaigns for some of the world’s most iconic brands.

A newly appointed associate creative director at Allied Global Marketing Dublin, his passion for the environment and outdoors has always been a driving factor behind his work.

It's impossible to ignore the impact of AI on the creative industry, with implications reaching far beyond advertising, but Matt believes that a tool is only as dangerous as the people who wield it, and that the unstoppable march towards progress can co-exist with a love and passion for creativity, sustainability, and saving the planet

LBB> What’s the most impactful way that AI is helping you in your current role?

Matt> I think more than anything, it’s a great reference point. Whether it’s for images or information.

Brand experiences, like every creative discipline, starts with an idea. AI is remarkably helpful when we’re expressing those ideas.

It takes a lot of time out of finding images that clearly denote a feeling or a vibe that would otherwise be quite tricky with traditional image searches.

There is a caveat though. I do worry that we’re losing nuance through AI images, in so much that when you show an example it becomes the expectation. It leaves little room for interpretation.

LBB> We hear a lot about AI driving efficiencies and saving time. But are there any ways that you see the technology making qualitative improvements to your work, too?

Matt> I find AI does a great job of giving me cool facts and titbits of information in a way that directly relates to what I’ve asked. If I’m looking for the number of walrus-related crimes in Norway for example, it’s a lot easier to have that information collated for me, rather than hoping someone else in the Scandi-noir walrus true-crime community put the list together.

I’ve played around with voice-operated AI, asking questions as I go through my day. As a lover of insight driven work, it has had a remarkable impact, turning my insatiable love for information into exciting and actionable insights.

AI provides answers to a question rather than a search engine offering me an endless scrollable list of pages. All this to say that insights can be more targeted, more concise, and more backed by (hopefully) real information.

LBB> What are the biggest challenges in collaborating with AI as a creative professional, and how have you overcome them?

Matt> The best ideas aren’t simply a product of allowing everyone to follow their gut, a good idea takes time and patience to get right.

I love seeing crazy work, I love mad ideas being brought to me, but it’s also my job to keep things on track and moving in the right direction, not just from a creative perspective, but for the client.

And that often means saying no.

With AI, anyone can generate an image or a script but simply being able to do something doesn’t necessarily mean it’s right, or good. This can be tricky when a client approaches you with their own AI work.

Explaining why something will and will not work isn’t always simple. We’ve had to learn those rules, insights and limitations through education, experience, and good old-fashioned trial and error.

There’s no denying that the balance between creative and client has shifted, but our experience in this industry, now more valuable than ever, allows us to keep work impactful and meaningful.

When a client shows you a ‘mock-up’ of work done in an image generator with an AI written headline, I treat it like I hope everyone would any aspiring creative, with respectful and constructive feedback.

LBB> How do you balance the use of AI with your own creative instincts and intuition?

Matt> When we’re developing a plan for an activation, it’s so important to give a clear and accurate representation of what we can and will build. I have to fight with myself not to get too carried away with my creative aspirations.

Thankfully, I have producers to roll their eyes at me and politely remind me of some of the fundamentals, like the budget, or how gravity works. Where it really gets fun is using AI as an aggregator for user experiences, allowing us to transform people into artwork or music, or any number of outputs.

There’s a coming together of art and science that feels more accessible than ever. It reminds me of the early days of social media advertising and YouTube, where there was far more freedom with the platforms to do exciting work.

Remember the Tipp -Ex ‘A Hunter Shoots a Bear’ campaign. Although there is obviously some fun web trickery taking place, try even imagining doing that now with YouTube.

There’s so much potential to unlock with AI and activations.

LBB> And how do you ensure that the work produced with AI maintains a sense of authenticity or human touch?

Matt> When it comes to writing things, fight the blue squiggly line. Don’t let your words be re-organised into a more efficient or succinct order. Human language isn’t efficient. At its best, in advertising, it makes you think.

No matter how big or how small, fight to keep your individuality in your work, and more crucially, your brand tone.

Those corrections can feel like death by a thousand cuts.

LBB> Do you think there are any misconceptions or misunderstandings in the way we currently talk about AI in the industry?

Matt> I’m not saying anything particularly new here, but AI in its current form is a tool, not a replacement for genuine creativity.

I think the kind of people who are asking why we need creative agencies to make any work are the kind of people who would benefit from a creative agency the most.

In the slightly edited immortal words of Jeff Goldblum “You were so preoccupied with whether or not you could, you didn't stop to think if you should” while he gestures wildly at any fully AI generated TV ad – most of which have already been forgotten and only served to create conversation around AI rather than the brand.

LBB> What ethical considerations come to mind when using AI to generate or assist with creative content?

Matt> The energy costs of AI are currently unsustainable. Pure and simple.

If we had a quick look at the current prediction for energy usage for server farms in Ireland vs household and the industrial sector combined, you can clearly see the near-apocalyptic damage ‘big AI’ will have on the cost of living, not to mention the environmental cost.

I think all concerns around ‘is AI art really art’ are completely secondary to the issues we’ll be facing in the face of AIs growing adoption. Unless that’s a clever AI written disinformation campaign, in which case, they got me.

There is no easy answer on how to resolve this. I’ve worked on environmental sustainability throughout my career.

Navigating the ongoing power crises in South Africa, working with the WWF leading up to and during the drought that ravaged the Western Cape and it all points to the same thing, be mindful of how you use any resource.

Look at AIs that use more sustainable models or simply ask yourself if it’s necessary to use it at all for the task at hand.

LBB> Have you seen attitudes towards AI change in recent times? If so, how?

Matt> Like any new technology replicating real life, AI is hitting the uncanny valley. The closer we get to real life, the more uncomfortable we are with the images we’re looking at.

Overwhelmingly, the positivity around AI videos and images is directly linked to the advances made and what the future will look like.

But as it gets closer and closer to being indistinguishable from real images, those advances are going to slow down a lot, as each iteration of AI needs to work a lot harder for smaller and smaller improvements.

LBB> Broadly speaking, does the industry’s current conversation around AI leave you feeling generally positive, or generally concerned, about creativity’s future?

Matt> A few months ago, I found some of my old work at the centre of a debate on LinkedIn. Hundreds of comments from all over the industry. It wasn’t a particularly significant piece of work, but it had been called out as something that could have been replicated by AI.

For context, this was an ad for soup. I won’t go into specifics, but it got its own hashtag #SoupGate.

I loved this because nothing makes me happier than being the centre of attention. I wish it had been over some big piece of international work I’d done, but you take what you can get.

Overall, I found it a strange piece to become a flashpoint, when the argument, in reality, is really simple. If you’re proud of your product, in this case soup, show it.

If people are becoming comfortable with the idea of removing their own products from the ads, then the problem stops becoming a creative one and starts becoming an ethical business one.

LBB> Do you think AI has the potential to create entirely new forms of art or media that weren’t possible before? If so, how?

Matt> If someone asked you in 2007 if Dustin the Turkey would be in the Eurovision, you’d laugh at them. That’s how I feel now when faced with that question. “Of course not.” But just like this hypothetical past version of yourself, I could end up with turkey egg on my face.

I don’t think AI opens doors to exclusive new forms of art or media, it just makes them more accessible. Maybe even to people who didn’t have the tools or knowledge to have made it otherwise.

But it still comes down to human ingenuity.

LBB> Thinking about your own role/discipline, what kind of impact do you think AI will have in the medium-term future? To what extent will it change the way people in your role work?

Matt> As an ACD having access to AI means I can realise any of my ideas quickly. But I’m not the only person in the room.

I’m surrounded by incredible creatives and marketers all capable of offering up valuable and amazing ideas and insights.

Simply building out what I think works best with AI means I’m eliminating valuable input that helps me see different ways of thinking. I suppose in the medium-term future – it’s more of a word of caution.

There is something so aggressively addictive to being able to output everything and anything you can think of, but I can quickly see how it makes the role more isolating. Working with other people isn’t just how we get the best work, it’s also one of the best parts of the job.