14 Jan A Person Wrote This Headline: How Our Ad Agency Uses AI
It’s pretty simple, really. AI won’t take you out for coffee. It also won’t connect with your audience IRL to better reach them more effectively. We’re cool with giving AI a seat at the table, but we don’t expect it to shake our hands and ask how our recent vacation was. AI isn’t going anywhere and it has its benefits. We’d be lying if we said we haven’t reaped those. But before leaning in too hard, it’s important to us that we carefully consider the role we’re giving it.
“For starters, AI needs humans to operate most effectively.“
For starters, AI needs humans to operate most effectively. AI product strategist Josh Cadorette notes, “AI is powerful, but ultimately it’s only really powerful with a human in the loop. The data used to train AI is higher quality coming from a human.” In short, someone needs to be driving the car. (Okay, we know Waymo exists. Stay with us.)
Complete reliance on AI cuts out human connection. For us, that’s the best part. More than that, it’s a vital core value and a key piece of our operating system. Josh continues, “We’ve seen that there’s a human intuition and a feel to brand storytelling that can only be conveyed by emotional context that’s gathered from humans.” We can’t have AI attend our community events for us, create meaningful client relationships, or monopolize our creative. (And let’s be honest, that’s all the fun stuff, so why would we let it?) But it can be a helpful tool with things like administrative tasks, jumpstarting a brainstorm, or making quick creative edits.
“Complete reliance on AI cuts out human connection. For us, that’s the best part.“
So much of our work stems from knowing our clients and the people they’re trying to reach firsthand. Look at creative: we feel relying too heavily on AI could leave some originality and emotional depth on the table if positioned as the entirety of the creative process. So how has AI helped our creative team? One example is having it create visuals that help us envision how our designs and branding ideas would look in real-world settings. “AI is a really great generation tool, but it may not be capable on its own to develop really compelling work,” Josh points out.
“Look at creative: we feel relying too heavily on AI could leave some originality and emotional depth on the table if positioned as the entirety of the creative process.“
How about translation? Could AI help us translate entire documents in less than a minute? Sure – but there’s nothing like a native speaker to appropriately gauge intent and manipulate the language accordingly and in line with brand tone and style requirements, along with having a hand in quality control and accuracy. Trust us, we have seen tremendous translation mistakes made by AI tools.
“As a boutique agency with less manpower than a larger outfit, AI has been a pretty solid assistant for us.“
This same thinking is pretty in line with other company processes around here. We don’t give AI the keys to the castle, and we don’t want it carrying our team on its back. But our spreadsheets are buttoned up, our pitches are more effective, and we spend a lot less time sifting through Yelp reviews for the best lunch spot.
As a boutique agency with less manpower than a larger outfit, AI has been a pretty solid assistant for us, and it doesn’t crowd the office kitchen fridge with expired leftovers. From where we’re sitting, everyone wins.