We are in the business of evoking emotions, influencing behavioural change, and, as I would like to believe, bringing about positive change.
Increasingly over the past months, the drive for the communications and creative industry to adopt novel technology, be it AI, quantum computing, or deep tech in general, has been phenomenal.
The industry standards are elevated, Brands’ expectations are skyrocketing, and competition for the ever-moveable consumer attention is like never before.
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All this places monumental pressure on creators to cope with the whooping trend and embed all tech possible on the face of the earth to impress.
But let me ask you this, when was the last time a piece of content developed by AI made you “feel” something?
FOMO around AI
Corporate leaders are facing unprecedented pressure to stay abreast of new technologies. Surrounded by the frenzy of AI breakthroughs and successes, they feel a critical need to enthusiastically jump on the wagon and adopt the new tools that are creating all the hype, in an aim to advance their business and be in the center of now.
However, according to a survey from Asana’s Work Innovation Lab, 72 per cent of surveyed leaders experienced stress at least monthly over pressure to adopt AI solutions, which means they are adopting the tech for the wrong reasons.
As leaders decide to push their teams to largely adopt AI, a considerable risk of overlooking the rationality of such a decision prevails. Leaders end up falling for the surmounting push to adopt tech like AI due to being driven by industry pressure, rather than informed decision-making or a proven business need.
The issue then becomes whether this lightning-speed, rushed adoption of AI could jeopardise the creative industry’s outcome.
Essentially, it all comes down to the leader’s vision and where they place tech in the process: whether the goal is to alter their company’s credentials to reflect a tech-at-heart entity that ticks the box of using AI or whether tech is made available at the disposal of the company’s creative talent for when they decide they need it.
The stigma of not using tech
I believe in the notion that too much resources – and time – may hurt creativity. Of the brightest and boldest comms and creative campaigns out there, you will usually encounter the creators explaining how the idea was born in an instant, adopted by the visionaries, and pushed out there to the world – leveraging all digital tools and resources possible, of course.
Across my 15 years in business, I rarely stumbled upon cases where it was the other way around, where technology sparked the idea, influenced the motivation, or inspired the creators. Even with the most digitally driven campaigns, the inspiration is always a human-centric concept that tech then supports a seamless execution of.
It is essential that we remind ourselves that the creative process remains centralized around the human. Our intellect and, more importantly, emotions are still at the core of creative ideation. And it is completely acceptable to choose not to use AI.
Do not get me wrong; I use AI in many of my projects. However, I do not feel obliged to do so. I choose when and how I refer to the tech, and I am adamant that my creation, no matter a simple piece of editorial or a complex multi-channel creative campaign concept, is coined by an original, authentic thought, not an automated one.
Allow your people to be genuine, to leverage and activate their skills and ideas without preconditions of using a certain set of tech tools.
We need to still believe in the power of a good old brainstorm session instead of constantly pushing our team to ask ChatGPT or Gemini first so we feel better, we need to still trust that a conversation with our target audience persona adds immense value to an automated survey, we need to wholeheartedly believe in the far-reaching potential of a creative train of thoughts.
We need to marry our potential to the possibilities made available to us; instead of blindly demotivate our collective creativity and drive it idly.
This is not a piece about the doom and gloom that deep tech is set to bestow upon us; this is a call to put tech in perspective and let your people choose what suits them best to produce their finest outcome.
Much like any other tech that once put humanity in a turbulent state for a brief while till we get accustomed and start aspiring for what’s next, for me, deep tech is meant to be an option, a tool we choose to deploy or drop to bring about that positive change.
By Shaimaa El Nazer, MEPRA Strategy Board Member
