AI Creative… Just Because We Can, Should We?

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We’re living through a strange moment in the creative world. AI can generate an image before we’ve finished explaining the idea. Video can be created without a camera. Concepts can be visualized before a production ever exists. We can make more content, faster and cheaper than ever before. I keep coming back to one question: Just because we can make anything with AI, should we? 

I’m not anti-AI, but I am cautious. I’m excited about what these tools can do. They can help us explore an idea, visualize a direction, work through a problem, or get somewhere creatively that might have taken hours or days before. But I think there’s a danger in confusing the ability to make something with a reason to make it. 

For a long time, production was built around limitations. We had a budget. We had a certain number of hours on a location. We had to work around weather, talent, equipment, schedules and all the things that inevitably go wrong when you’re trying to make something in the real world. Those limitations could be frustrating, but they also forced decisions. Real people had to ask: What is important? What shot really matters? What can we live without? Now, many of those limitations are disappearing. That may sound like complete creative freedom and in some ways, it is. 

On the other hand, unlimited options can be their own kind of problem. When everything is possible, it becomes harder to know what is worth doing. That’s also why I don’t think real-world production is going away. There is still something valuable about putting a real person in front of a camera and seeing what happens. A real person brings personality, emotions, imperfections and unpredictability. A real location has its own character and charm. Light behaves differently than expected. A real interaction can create a moment nobody planned. Someone says something you didn’t plan for, or a moment happens between takes that ends up being better than the shot you spent an hour setting up. Those things are difficult to create because they weren’t planned for in the first place. They just happened. Those variables aren’t problems to solve; they’re often the things that make a piece of creative feel human. 

That doesn’t mean AI and traditional production need to be on opposite sides. I think the most interesting work comes when we use both. Sometimes a project needs a full production or maybe it just needs an iPhone. Maybe it could use a little help with AI. Occasionally it needs all three. 

The important question isn’t, “What technology should we use?” It’s “What does this idea need?” Because when anyone can create an image or video, the ability to create one isn’t particularly special anymore. What becomes valuable is the thinking behind it. The idea and the point of view. The ability to recognize when something feels familiar, forced or unnecessary. Also, even more importantly the ability to say no. Not every idea needs to become a campaign. Not every campaign needs 50 assets or to use new technology simply because it exists.  

We’re not going to run out of content. We’re heading in the opposite direction. There will be more images, videos and campaigns competing for attention than any of us can possibly consume. So maybe the question isn’t: “How can we make more?” It’s: “Why are we making this?” 

If the answer is a good one, then let’s make it, but let’s also be willing to stop and ask whether we need to make it at all. I think the next evolution of creative production isn’t figuring out how to make more. It’s figuring out what deserves to exist in the first place. Because if we’re going to ask people for their attention, the least we can do is give them something worth looking at.