How Creative AI Could Impact Business

An AI-generated portrait sold for nearly half a million dollars. An iconic rock band returns – in some cases from beyond the grave – with the help of AI to create a new hit song. Video game studios using AI to create new maps for players to explore.

It seems that generative AI is encroaching on a new creative domain every day. What was once considered a blunt tool for automating simple, repetitive tasks is proving far more effective at replicating human creativity than most imagined, with implications not just for workers in creative fields, but for all person whose work requires a level of imaginative thinking. This includes most knowledge workers and managers.

A lot workers feel threatened by this, but they should not hesitate to adopt generative AI. Rather than picking up their jobs, generative AI will offer a helping hand, acting more like an assistant than a replacement for workers in even the most creative roles.

For now, about three-quarters of adults of all ages still prefer talking to human agents rather than AI chatbots, according to a recent study. Information and analysis Prosper investigation. This is true whether people need help with banking services, health issues, online shopping, telecommunications and entertainment services, or travel. People want to interact with other people because they are much more context aware than any chatbot. It’s the same reason creative workers shouldn’t worry about AI encroachment.

Why a human in the know matters more than ever

Today’s AI, even the most impressive models, lack direction, contextual awareness, reasoning, and a host of other human skills that allow people to connect their work to market opportunities. While generative AI’s ability to spin images, text, and videos from a few written prompts is undoubtedly profound, it can’t do much without a person telling it what to do .

Additionally, we are starting to see the limits of what these models can do. Image generators continue to make common errors due to their lack of understanding of basic physics and anatomy, which humans understand intuitively, and text tools confidently assert information that is not factual. For these reasons, companies are urging their employees to view the results of generative AI tools as a starting point rather than a finished product.

This is reflected in the way people use generative AI tools. Across all age groups, the most commonly cited use of AI is search (46% for all adults over 18), according to a recent study. Information and analysis Prosper investigation. Much further down the list, at 25.7% of respondents, is content creation. This suggests that people feel confident using AI to inform their work and perhaps even lend a hand in its initial design, but it still takes a human touch to put the finishing touches on a work .

In this context, it makes sense to view generative AI as a tool for creativity rather than a substitute for creatives. AI tools always need a person at the helm to direct them. They need someone who understands the business, its go-to-market strategy, its customers’ needs, its internal policies and procedures, among many other contextual elements to produce effective safeguards.

Beena Ammanath, executive director of Deloitte Global AI Institute at Deloitte states that “executives and technology leaders need to understand that the most productive uses of generative AI will not be in replacing people and cutting corners, but rather in equipping employees with tools that help them advance and improve their productivity, knowledge and creativity. . Creative technologies like generative AI require constant collaboration with creative human talent, and companies that prioritize this relationship will benefit.

For example, generative AI tools can be effective at producing social media posts for marketing teams, but they need someone to tell them which channels to target, what the brand presence looks like, who are their customers and how their product is different from their product. competitors. AI tools also need people involved to correct any errors in their output.

The potential impact of AI on hiring

That said, the creative capabilities of generative AI tools will likely change the way businesses get work done. The most significant impact of AI on creative endeavors may be the elimination of skill as a prerequisite for creative expression. You no longer need to master any particular image editing software to create stunning digital art. You don’t need encyclopedic knowledge of multiple coding languages ​​to create attractive websites. You don’t need years of musical training to produce a catchy song. In a world where technical skills are decoupled from the ability to produce something, creativity can flow at the speed of thought, and whoever has the most interesting ideas will likely reap the greatest rewards.

Like Mike Bechtel, chief futurist at Deloitte Consulting The says: “Pioneers see generative AI not as an excuse to do the same work with fewer people, but as an opportunity to do new and better work with the same people. » This can change the type of people companies hire and the skills they want to see on a CV. In the past, job postings resembled shopping lists, with bullet points after bullet points describing the specific skills required by the position, especially for technical roles. In the future, more emphasis may be placed on the candidate’s ability to think critically and creatively about how to connect the power of AI tools to real-world business problems.

The reason is simple. If you give an image generator a boring prompt, it will return a boring image. But if you give it a more imaginative prompt, it will return something compelling, maybe even inspiring. Companies are likely to start looking for people who can demonstrate that they understand the business context and have creative ideas to generate competitive advantage, more so than people with a long list of skills.

Expect leaders to be particularly affected by this trend. In the past, executives were hired and paid based on their ability to track data. Make no mistake, data-driven decision-making will remain more important than ever, especially at the executive level. But we will likely see a new generation of leaders building their careers on their creative vision. Leaders who can imagine creative ways to equip their employees with AI-driven superpowers could see their companies – and their careers – leapfrog their competitors.

Beyond AI

It may seem like the tech world is currently revolving around generative AI. But leaders must not lose sight of the other technologies needed to take full advantage of the AI ​​revolution. AI trains best on structured, labeled data, so a formal approach to data management is an essential foundation. Cloud platforms provide critical scalability. At an even higher level, leaders need to pay attention to how AI tools fit into their broader digital transformation goals. As transformative as AI may seem today, potentially even more impactful technologies lie ahead, like quantum computingfor which leaders must be prepared.

Today, we hear a lot of people – whether they’re vendors offering AI tools or cheerleaders for the technology in the popular press – suggesting that you can simply use AI to solve n no matter what problem you encounter. Savvy business and technology leaders will recognize that whatever the transformational capabilities of AI today, it is just one tool among many. Understanding where it fits into your organization’s broader technology priorities will be key to getting the best results from it.