Artificial intelligence is transforming the creative industries at unprecedented speed, but advertising professionals say its greatest strength is also exposing its biggest weakness: it can produce content, but not originality.
The technology has rapidly become part of everyday life in agencies and marketing teams, helping creatives generate ideas, produce visuals, proofread copy and automate repetitive administrative tasks that once dominated the working day.
Its arrival has reshaped not only how work is produced, but who can produce it. Antonis, a branding and marketing coordinator, believes AI has levelled the playing field by allowing freelancers and smaller studios to work at a speed and scale that once required an entire agency, making creative production more accessible and stretching client budgets further.
Advertising creative duo Andreas and Aidaras said: “AI doesn’t have taste, only humans do. In an era of AI, tech and algorithms, taste, craft and originality is more important than ever.”
That belief reflects a growing feeling across the industry that while AI is making content easier to create, it is also making genuinely distinctive work harder to find.
The ease of producing AI-generated copy and imagery has flooded social media feeds and advertising with content that often feels repetitive, Antonis said, arguing that the abundance of average work has made originality even more valuable.
Antonis said: “Average work is easier than ever, which weirdly makes distinctive work more valuable.”
Despite concerns about quality, few professionals interviewed could now imagine working without AI.
Advertising agencies are increasingly training staff to use multiple AI platforms, while creatives are learning how to write better prompts and integrate the technology into their daily workflows.
Andreas and Aidaras admitted they were initially sceptical but now use AI every day for research, idea development and visual concepts, describing it as a tool that accelerates the creative process rather than replacing it.
For Audrey, a content manager, AI has become an everyday assistant. She uses it to generate ideas, proofread copy and reduce administrative work, freeing up more time for creative thinking. However, she believes the technology is still too unreliable to replace experienced professionals because its output often contains generic responses and factual errors that require careful checking.
“Some of its answers are very generic and can’t be used. AI makes a lot of mistakes. Everything has to be checked because the mistakes are often completely random. That makes me feel confident that AI won’t be taking my job any time soon because it’s not reliable enough,” Audrey said.
Many organisations are also drawing clear boundaries around where AI should and should not be used. Antonis said his workplace reserves the technology for repetitive tasks while leaving creative judgement and critical thinking to people.
Antonis said: “The goal is working more efficiently, not outsourcing the thinking.”
Even so, AI’s rapid evolution continues to provoke anxiety, particularly among writers. Andreas worries that aspiring creatives are becoming too dependent on AI before developing their own skills, potentially weakening the craft in the long term.
Andreas said: “I wish AI couldn’t write like humans because it’s sucked the fun – and soul – out of writing.”
Rather than asking whether AI belongs in advertising, the conversation has shifted towards how it should be used, where its limits should lie and which parts of the creative process should remain distinctly human.
For now, those working in advertising appear united on one point: AI may be changing the way campaigns are researched, designed and delivered, but the ideas that truly connect with audiences still rely on something algorithms have yet to master – human judgement, originality and taste.
Featured image credit: Emiliano Vittoriosi via Unsplash
Join the discussion