Unless creatives and planners upskill and upgrade, AI will take away their jobs
Having once believed creativity to be the domain of humans alone, Tobias Wilson now feels we might one day soon reach a moment clients won’t have a choice but to replace underperforming people with machines – unless those working in the industry take action now.
Is your creative department safe from artificial intelligence?
Now that’s a sentence nobody working in the marketing industry ever wants to see in their advertising copy. But it does make a very pertinent point in that today, creative as we know it is not safe from technology. It’s going to have to change, innovate and reshape itself.
While there will still be a human element in the process, creativity in its current form is on marketing’s endangered list.
If you subscribe to Malcolm Gladwell’s long-touted 10,000 hour theory, it’s not just talent that allows someone to be incredible at what they do – it’s situational. It’s Bill Gates having unlimited access to one of the most advanced computer labs in the US in seventh grade. It’s The Beatles playing 270 gigs in Germany over the course of 18 months before they became famous.
Great piece Tobias! The important thing is creatives (as with all professions) shouldn’t fight AI but rather look for how they can use it to improve their own work
That’s exactly what an A.I entity would say….
I can’t ever remember bothering to look at a job applicant’s hand to see whether they are engaged or not. Do some people actually do this?
I agree that a lot of functions and tasks can be delivered by AI. Like rewriting versions of copy. And time sheets (please do our time sheets). If we find ways to work with AI like that, everybody will be better off.
What strategists, creatives and humans do have is empathy. It’s a long way off before AI develops that. Continue to deliver work with emotional insight and you will not be replaced by a bot.