AI, the hare and the tortoise: The race is on for powering up in-house creativity

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As part of our collaboration with this year’s Mad/Fest, The Inside Out® Community hosted a panel session on the topic of AI, posing the question, is your in-house creative team a hare or a tortoise when powering up AI?

The all female panel included Inside Out® Community Advisor Tabitha Winter, IOC Member Sabs Godden – Tuma, Global Creative Director at Vodafone and Holly McKinlay, Director of Strategic Communications & Brand at WWF. We discussed how AI is reshaping the creative landscape with a particular focus on how it can power up in-house creative teams.

In a fascinating conversation, we wanted to share some of their experiences and observations which you may find interesting, encouraging and reassuring.

To better understand the current landscape, we asked each of our panel to share where their brand is in terms of AI adoption and exploration.

Image of the all-female panel included Inside Out® Community Advisor Tabitha Winter, IOC Member Sabs Godden - Tuma, Global Creative Director at Vodafone and Holly McKinlay, Director of Strategic Communications & Brand at WWF.

Vodafone

“At a global level we have an AI board and an AI task force. At the In-house creative agency, we are still learning, we are not specialists, we are at the beginning of the journey  but we have seen good progress. We are not scared to use it. AI is not the creative mind, it’s a tool, a collaborator, we use it for repetitive tasks.”

The use of AI tools has cut down some tasks by 70% so our creatives actually have 70% more time to be creative”.

“Our challenge, internal processes can slow things down for in-house creative teams. Due diligence, policies, IT restrictions that need to be navigated. My advice would be to work collaboratively with all departments  to get ahead of the game.”

WWF

“We have been using generative AI for creativity for two years, working with AI tools to help increase productivity.  For a small charity based in-house creative team with limited resources the use of AI has helped us to be more creative and more productive.”

“The challenge now is how we set up AI policy. Our IT teams have pulled it back so our first activation we used mid journey, now we can’t use it because it is not in our policy.”

“Authenticity is a real challenge for a brand that has been built on creativity using beautiful natural history imagery,  so we are grappling with that.” 

Agency perspective

“Agencies typically have a little less red tape, they have a lot more interest in AI and share their expertise.”

There is a misunderstanding around what AI can do and what it can’t do and authenticity is a real issue for brands.”

Top tip

“Look at how you can leverage AI and Automation to make a process more efficient. To give time back to the creatives to be creative.”

IOA Observation

“In-house creative teams are focusing on automation, getting the process in place and then building on that with creativity.”

Theme – Using this technology has consequences, environmental, ethical – AI trade off

Vodafone

“Ethical use of AI is something we really need to focus on.  Whatever you feed into it you are the driver, so it needs to be used responsibly.”

“What platforms are you going to use, are the platforms robust and do they have the policies behind them? Everything that has been done by AI has no copyright. That’s dangerous.”

“We need to pay attention. The human in front of AI has a responsibility to analyse and identify what’s coming back and then take that forward. Have fun with it, it’s to help our creative process, but we wouldn’t put it in front of our clients.”

WWF

How do you protect the data you feed in? Prompt IP has to be looked at legally.

“There is an environmental impact. You need to add Generative AI into your environmental and sustainability policy.  How do you assess the impact and what can you do to mitigate your carbon impact.”

Advisor perspective

“Accept there are legal issues, ensure you are aligned with what the company feels comfortable doing.”

“I think the best way to use AI is to have human input at the beginning, human curation at the end and AI doing some work in the middle, such as ideation and content creation. This way you don’t lose the nuances, cultural understandings, the things that humans bring that the robots will never learn.”

What does the future hold?

Vodafone

“We will be using AI for ideation, as a tool to help ideas come to life.”

Top Tip

“It is an enabler and enhances creativity. Have fun with it, embrace it and grow from it. Use it as a co-pilot”

WWF

“AI gives you the ability to imagine the future. Paint a picture for people about what the future could look like.”

“AI is a fantastic Co-pilot to busy teams who don’t have the capacity to be creative.”

“As a leader, we need to dispel the fear. AI is not coming for our jobs. The more the team uses it, the more they see how it can benefit the work.”

Advisor perspective

“Putting in processes and optimising ways or working with teams, can give creative time back.”

“Agility, innovation and strategic foresight will determine the winners.”

Watch full session here

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