As marketing agencies worldwide rush to integrate generative artificial intelligence (AI) into their workflows, the Head of FORGE challenges the marketing sector to move beyond the pursuit of speed and efficiency towards a sophisticated model of human-machine collaboration, says FORGE.

"Culture and human creative distinctiveness always win over speed," says Courtney Chapple, AI Director at award-winning, AI-driven agency, FORGE. "The current approach to generative AI, where agencies and brand teams treat the technology as a replacement for human creativity rather than a collaborative partner, is unfortunate," she says.

"Passive participation produces work that is undistinctive and generates media that is a 'sea of sameness'. The work might appear competent, but it is generic, and let's face it, humans don't resonate with bland, unremarkable advertising," Chapple notes.

To address what Chapple calls the problem of "a sea of sameness", FORGE has developed the 'FORGE AI Sprint'. This proprietary technique repositions marketing professionals as collaborative creators in AI-powered creative processes. Rather than using AI to deliver final work, the Forge Sprint employs a process that generates more human work across multiple stages. This is from brief to goals, goals to strategic platforms, and platforms to creative execution, adds the agency.

Between each stage, human teams conduct breakout sessions to stress-test, dismantle, and reconstruct AI-generated advertising. "Four people in a traditional brainstorm might spend an hour generating 20 generic ideas," Chapple explains. "But generative AI can deliver those same 20 in seconds. This buys the team an hour not to generate, but to refine, craft, and polish generic starting points into work that surprise and delight marketing teams, and the C-suite."

The methodology reflects a fundamental shift from hierarchical command structures, where humans instruct, and generative AI obeys and delivers, towards what Chapple calls "reciprocal intelligence". "To use AI to produce the best results is to operate in a state of continuous collaboration where AI is a member of the team, and operates as a "reciprocal intelligence", rather than a workhorse, says the agency.

Chapple argues that as AI tools become increasingly capable and accessible, an agency's or marketing department's competitive advantage will shift from technological adoption to curatorial excellence. "If AI provides the average, the human role is to recognise what 'good' looks like," she says. 

"In the future, agencies and marketing teams will comprise a collection of individuals with impeccable taste and deep cultural insight who constantly collaborate with AI to deliver unique, compelling and more human advertising content," she says.

This emphasis on taste over speed represents a departure from the prevailing professional narrative that positions AI primarily as a tool for operational efficiency and margin recovery, concludes the agency.

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*Image courtesy of X