From The Trenches 12: Does AI Really Automate Creativity?

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The last two years have seen a rash of layoffs, with the creative sector hard hit. In the References section, you’ll find examples of corporations laying off content creators, media sector layoffs, and journalism layoffs. While some of these are tied to mergers and acquisitions, the timing also aligns with the emergence of AI image and video generation creative tools.

Some of this is, predictably, due to the premise that ad copy and creative assets can be produced more cheaply and rapidly with generative AI. But looking more closely at the reason which Fortune gives for their layoffs, there’s another element of it too: people are consuming less website and print media, turning their attention to video and chatbot-generated summaries for information instead.

Putting the ability to generate digital images and video B-roll into everybody’s hands has cheapened the value of artists, as the data from corporate reports and anecdotal evidence from the freelance market shows. Inevitably, what falls to the wayside are volume-based work that was viewed as commoditized anyway, such as the hospitality industry example of replacing manually created editorial content with AI-generated content that is micro-targeted and hyper-localized.

When AI Enables Blockbusters, Everyone’s Happy

As with many of the topics in this series, AI in creative production isn’t new. The Lord of the Rings trilogy is a quarter of a century old, but computer-generated imaging (CGI) was used in the battle scenes. That was widely known and acknowledged, yet it didn’t detract from the popularity of the films.

A more recent example is Ne Zha 2, which became the highest-grossing animated film of all time in 2025 and for non-English language films.  Without AI, it wouldn’t be possible to create the intricate visuals of the 18-layer underworld. Even with technology, the manpower needed was immense: over 100 teams, over 4,000 workers, more than 1,900 special effects shots, and over 10,000 special effects elements.

But the special effects are only one aspect of the appeal that brought viewers back to cinemas to watch Ne Zha 2 more than once. The story is a rejuvenation of ancient Chinese mythology, thus has deep cultural significance. Its theme of a rebellious demon child defying his destiny of an early death to fight against evil resonates with people, as does the unconditional love of his parents, with his mother even being willing to sacrifice her life for him.

In the end, AI can make art, but the success of Ne Zha 2 shows that top-grade execution and storytelling are a labour of love for people, by people.

Prompts Aren’t Magic, The Mood Is

Earlier this year, Artlist.io released the integration of Google’s VEO 3 Flow video generator into their service offerings. They shared that the prompting process for the hilarious final scene, where a Viking leads his army into the water armed with pool floats, wasn’t straightforward. They experimented with many prompts, some using very specific technical descriptions, but ultimately, they chose the winning shot for the mood, not for the technique used to prompt it.

A creative eye is needed to have that level of discernment. Someone just prompting to generate a scene is unlikely to care about what effect it has on human emotions, making the difference between a scroll-stopping, belly-laugh-inducing ad and a forgettable one.

With AI Commoditizing Product Ads, What Matters Is Brand Voice

Lately, Ikea’s “Wherever Life Goes” ad showed us where brand advertising might be headed in a landscape of commoditized product ads. Previous ads showed Ikea’s furniture, but this latest one evoked the moments when buying affordable furniture – and thus Ikea – might pop up in our lives.

And this is three months after a concept of an AI-generated Ikea ad created with Google VEO3 went viral!

Ultimately, whether a brand endures depends on its ability to serve the needs and appeal to the emotions of humans.

These examples where human creativity and empathy make the difference in a generative AI world should show that even when AI enables creativity, human vision and expertise is needed to create narratives that make other humans care.

In Part 13, I’ll wrap up with a summary of where I believe value goes with AI reshaping digital marketing and business analytics. It should be no surprise that this has led to the disruption of livelihoods and careers, with the many successive layoff announcements made in 2024 and 2025.

I’ll then pose the four areas that we need to think about: rebundling job descriptions, reshaping roles, reskilling people, and realigning employment models. While my examples will come from the fields where I’ve practiced, I hope that these examples will spark off thoughts and discussion that can benefit other fields disrupted by AI.

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