The creative industry always seeks to innovate, we don’t just keep up with trends, we pride ourselves on being the ones to set them. One of the biggest trends that has swept through our industry recently is AI. Never ones to be left behind we’ve recently been exploring how to use AI tools to boost our creative output and as a source of inspiration.

Generating fresh ideas every day can sometimes be a challenge even for the most seasoned creative team and sometimes we can get stuck with the dreaded creative block. So, our experiments with AI have been incredibly interesting. By using AI as a tool to generate inspiration and hammer out rough ideas, we have unlocked a new level of efficiency. Gone are the days of scribbling ideas on the back of an envelope. Now, with the right prompts, we can edit an image in a click or generate hyper-real images to convey ideas both internally and to our clients. We’ve used some recently in pitch presentations and as a tool to brief photographers to help us convey exactly what sort of shot we’re trying to capture.

Communicating ideas has often been a challenge in our industry. In the past we’ve used scamps, illustrations, moodboards and text to try to convey our vision of what we’re trying to achieve to our clients. Recently we’ve had great success creating AI images with Midjourney. Some have been more success than others, but with the right prompts we’ve saved countless hours of scrolling on stock sites for images to use when briefing photographers or selling ideas into clients.

One of the best benefits we’ve found with AI is including it in the creative process. We’re able to generate a vast array of ideas very quickly, some that are quickly discarded, but others that spark further ideas and inspire our creative team. We’ve experimented with ChatGPT’s extensive datasets to kick start creative meetings and used it to challenge us to think differently. It’s been a marvellous catalyst sparking ideas we have been able to build on to create fresh ideas for our clients.

There is a worry that as AI continues to evolve, the creative industry will lose its human element as our jobs are outsourced to sophisticated algorithms, but I think that’s a long way off yet. Right now, integrating AI technologies into our daily creative process can open new opportunities to refine and redefine our craft. We can learn new skills, enhance our workflows, and free our minds to deliver our full creative potential.

Whether AI is truly indispensable is yet to be seen, but we’re committed to staying ahead of this trend and in our constantly evolving industry we know that whatever happens next, we’ll be clued up and ready to make the most of AI.