It’s the topic everyone in advertising (and virtually every other industry) is thinking, talking, and asking about: What’s the future of AI? And what can (and can’t) it do?

As a full-service agency, Point B Communication has hands-on experience navigating artificial intelligence tools from all sides: Strategy, graphics, videography, and more. My name is Ruth, I’m one of our agency’s copywriters. But I set aside my ad writing, concept pitching skills to break out my investigative journalism cap and crack open this case.

I sat down with our creative team to learn how they’re using AI in their day-to-day life — and when they avoid it (side note: Yes, I used an em-dash there. Yes, I know ChatGPT loves to use them. The only AI used for this article was an automatic transcription platform. No CoPilot. No Gemini. Maybe a little spellchekcing).

So, let’s get to it: What are the peaks (and pitfalls) of AI in advertising?

Copy

As a writer, I’m using my creative power to kick us off with the area most near and dear to my heart. And it’s also one of the most widely used versions of AI. According to the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), writing is the most common work-related use of ChatGPT. From email and social posts to summaries and translations, writing accounts for 40% of work-related messages. To break it down even further, two-thirds of that 40% is editing already written text.

Claire, our Senior Copywriter at Point B, primarily uses ChatGPT to get her ideas in order. “It's really good at organizing and putting things in outlines,” she says, adding, “It also thinks of some things you might not think about, from a strategic perspective.”

She also uses it to review and tighten up her final work: “When I'm finished with something, I'll throw it in, say, 'Do I repeat this word? Do I use this word?’ Because sometimes I will repeat words, especially when there's only so many ways to describe something… It helps me find if I've replicated the same phrase multiple times, which is super helpful.”

However, as good as AI is at spitting out text and editing work, it falls short when it comes to creating voice and differentiating itself from the mass of other brands out there. “A lot of people use ChatGPT when they're trying to quickly fill in writing,” Claire says. “And they're always going to get very similar responses.”

“AI is going to always be here, so how can we use it to our benefit? Creating better prompts.”

In her experience, purposeful, thoughtful prompting is key, or else “[AI] will output the same exact type of writing, same cadence, same type of words, over and over again.” She notes, however, that training and prompting AI can be a full-time job — especially in experience-driven industries like hospitality and senior living, both primary fields for Point B.

Claire also finds that ChatGPT falls short when it comes to nuance and subtlety, specifically for emotional and persuasive writing: “It's very good at extremes, there’re so many examples on the internet for really loud, heavy emotions. [But] it doesn't know what human empathy is like. We’re writing in ways that people will resonate with, and it’s not good at that. It can’t grasp that part of being a person.”

All in all, Claire finds ChatGPT to be great for tech-related, organizational work. The catch? “It has a very marketing-focused brain. But it’s not creative.”

Art Direction

When it comes to graphic design, forms of generative AI have been around since the turn of the century. Photo manipulation, in fact, is a time-honored practice, and can be found everywhere from superimposing Abraham Lincoln’s face onto a portrait of John C. Calhoun to the retouching of women’s waists in the Victorian Era. More recently, cloning tools and similar generative AI have been used to photoshop and edit images for more than 20 years. Today’s generative AI is still opening up a world of possibilities for agencies and graphic designers.

Nancy, Senior Art Director at Point B, mainly uses AI for image retouching and object replacement. “I use AI to, say, replace an object on a table. Say there’s wine glasses in a scene, and we don’t want to depict drinking.” For her, it’s a great tool to quickly edit a photo directly in Adobe Photoshop — though usually with a little trial and error. “You just kind of select an area of the photo and type in a command for, you know, a vase of flowers or cereal bowl, and [Photoshop] reads the area around it. But the results can be mixed.”

During our time together, Nancy showed me how AI lacked the context for what would be an appropriate replacement for a scene. We soon saw a surprise Christmas tree, odd lighting coming from all over the scene, and (of course) nightmare-worthy attempts to create hands and faces.

Image extensions are another area with a love-hate relationship — and where context is key. Nancy often turns to Photoshop to extend an original image to accommodate a deliverable’s size requirements. Prompting, though, was critical to getting a successful generation. From (more) Christmas trees to random piles of dumbbells, the image generation in Photoshop needed human finesse, a real creative’s touch. “The computer doesn't really understand how to see and interpret things like we do. It's like magic, but it's fallible.”

Sabina, Point B’s Associate Creative Director, also uses AI Adobe tools like Firefly and Generative Fill. She finds them most useful during the early stages of a project: “I always find it's more beneficial in the concepting phase and the brainstorming phase.”

From removing objects in images to enhancing the resolution of photos (especially helpful for large-print deliverables), AI for her is a great way to free up time to focus on those tasks that need a human touch. She cautions, though: “It's not easy to get the results you want, and it's time-consuming [to get there]… Prompting is so important when it comes to using AI tools.

What you're going to get is really dependent on how the computer understands what you're saying. Prompting is a very specific skill set.”

And when it comes to the end result? “I just don't find that the fidelity of it is good enough for anything that's final.” While she’ll use AI to help create visuals early on in the pitching process, anything that will be consumer-facing has to have a designer’s touch. “I do truly believe that you miss something. There isn't that human element…There's a texture to a human voice you just do not get with that.”

At the end of the day, though, Sabina thinks that artificial intelligence is here for the long haul. “I think AI is definitely here to stay…[People are] pushing it really hard to integrate into every single bit of our everyday life. I think that's inevitable. But I think there are ways to use it properly. It's a tool, and it should be used as a tool. It's not a magic button.”

Videography

I closed out my interviews around the office by speaking with Josh, Point B’s Manager of Video Services. For him, AI has been an amazing aid — if you know which programs to use. With so many options out there, and many third-party services, learned experience is key to knowing which platforms are best suited for your specific type of work.

“It's a tremendous time-saving tool,” he says. From data refinement to general research, Josh uses Chat GPT as a starting point, “so most of my creative time can go to refinement…[it's] a great tool for eliminating a lot of the guesswork.”

He’s wary, though, of becoming overly reliant on the technology. “It can also be dangerous,” he says.

“If you rely too much on it…there's definitely a danger of no longer using your imagination.”

Though a great tool, he’s encountered pitfalls. “It's never going to have, like, a human voice. I mean, you can feed it references, and it can approximate what you want. But it's never going to have a genuine voice.”

On the topic of voice, Josh has found AI to be a great tool for both transcribing and voiceovers. “Prior to AI being implemented into my production workflow, you’d be looking at a few hours of setting up your sound recording station, scheduling with the creative director, and sourcing talent. There’s a lot of human hours spent there.” For pitches and non-external-facing work, AI-generated voiceovers have proven to be a valuable time-saving tool. “That process turns into basically minutes.”

When it comes to Adobe, both After Effects and Premiere have invaluable AI features for editing video or extending clips. Josh showed me how, by using a Premiere feature called Generative Extend, he could extend a drone shot of a senior living campus by at least 10 seconds, filling in forests and building architecture.

Another one of Josh’s favorites? “It's called Content Aware Fill, which [has been] a feature that's existed for a few years, but now it's just gotten really crazy in terms of how accurate it is.” Drawing a mask around a section of a clip, he’s able to change the content or remove objects almost instantly.  

From randomizing animated elements to generating audio and social content, AI has changed the game when it comes to video production. Just don’t ask it to edit text or people, or you’ll be sorely disappointed — and maybe a little disturbed by the results.

AI in Advertising: Yay or Nay?

So, there you have it: A range of advertising creatives and their thoughts on AI. From editing copy to transforming images and video, the possibilities of AI already seem endless and will only continue to grow. 

When it comes to agency work, though, the #1 benefit of AI are the possibilities it’s creating for human ingenuity. The true power of this technology lies not in its capacity to create — but rather its ability to aid and augment human creativity. 

Whether it's freeing up work hours by streamlining grunt work or being a game-changing editing aid, AI has already proved itself to be a revolutionary support (not solution) to creatives across Point B’s ecosystem. It's revolutionizing the ad world by enabling designers, writers, and video producers to spend their time providing the human contribution, real-person input and refinement that art depends on.

AI is already a part of our agency toolbox at Point B — and we can’t wait to discover where it takes us next.