ADVANCE 2024: The 5 Waves of Creative Change Fueled by AI

In today's rapidly evolving marketing landscape, AI is becoming an integral part of the creative process, offering unprecedented opportunities for growth and innovation. While some professionals express concerns over the potential for AI to dilute creativity, the reality is quite the opposite—AI is empowering marketers to do more, faster, and with greater precision. By automating repetitive tasks and providing insights at scale, AI allows creatives to focus on what they do best: thinking big and executing bold ideas.

Scott Belsky, Chief Strategy Officer and Executive Vice President of Design & Emerging Products at Adobe joined industry experts, creatives, and visionaries at Smartly’s inaugural event, ADVANCE this week in New York City, offering an inspiring presentation on five waves of creative change and what they mean for brands and their creative partners.

The Opportunities for Creative Innovation

Rather than diminishing creativity, AI is expanding its reach, making it accessible to more people and unlocking new possibilities for creative exploration. As AI tools continue to improve, they’re helping professionals move beyond technical constraints, enabling them to push boundaries and achieve a higher level of creative excellence.

In this new era of marketing, where creativity is the key differentiator, AI offers a path not only to enhanced productivity but also to renewed creativity. Belsky highlighted these 5 Waves of Creative Change to keep brands on the cutting edge of advertising excellence: 

1. Creativity is the New Productivity

We've deployed productivity tools to get more done quickly, often seeking the elusive "flow state"—that optimal zone where work feels effortless. Ironically, the work itself gets in the way of flow—the frictions that prevent us from expressing ideas in real-time. 

Belsky urged that we can unlock new possibilities by integrating creative tools throughout the enterprise. Promotion, once based solely on productivity, is now shifting toward creativity as the key differentiator.

Leaning into AI allows us to return to the flow and lean into big ideas. It was previously difficult to maintain creative integrity at scale. Now, AI provides speed and scale while leaning on great ideas from real people. 

2. Creative Confidence is Growing

Belsky pointed out that for most of us, our creative confidence peaked at five years old when teachers gave us stars for our artwork. As we grew older, we realized that others had skills we didn’t possess and criticism and skepticism took over. 

Now, a new wave of technologies enables people to quickly create compelling content from natural language inputs, restoring creative confidence. This resurgence is fueling the creator economy, where everyone feels capable of expressing their ideas through content creation. Creativity is no longer confined by a specific set of skills—it’s becoming accessible to all.

3. Creative Exploration Opportunities Expand

As confidence is restored, the opportunities to explore creative potential are rapidly multiplying. In the past, if you lacked certain skills, you had to find someone else to tell your story. Today, we’re shifting from skill constraints to imagination constraints—creativity is being democratized. The opportunity for creative exploration is expanding rapidly. 

What does this mean for professionals in the creative industry? Professionals now have access to tools that allow them to explore countless solutions, like ten cycles of discovery instead of just one. For example, recoloring in Illustrator allows for more creative exploration in less time.

We are moving from the prompt era to the control era. Imagine extending a video clip by just two seconds with a simple command. Custom models will enable creative teams to focus on exploration, while social media teams can engage in more agile marketing with on-brand assets. The constraints of time and surface exploration are being removed, opening up a hundred times more possibilities and leading to better solutions.

By lowering the floor, we’re empowering people who previously lacked confidence to create for various purposes—whether they are knowledge workers, social teams, or salespeople. At the same time, we’re raising the ceiling for professionals, enabling them to push the boundaries of what’s possible. This new genre of marketing—real-time, agile marketing—capitalizes on the moment and allows professionals to reach new heights.

4. All Digital Experiences Can be Hyper-Personalized

People long to feel known and understood. Every website should remember who we are and offer a personalized experience. But we don’t want it to feel creepy; we want it to feel like a relationship. Belsky highlighted Carvana's personalized videos as a strong example of effective AI personalization. Carvana created AI-generated videos of their customer’s car buying experiences to celebrate their 10-year anniversary.

We’re moving from generalized experiences to personalized ones—shifting from a world where you search for answers to one where you ask questions and receive tailored responses. Where once we learned apps, now apps will learn us. 

5. The Bar is Rising for Creative Experiences 

This shift from data-driven experiences to AI-driven ones is already happening, and higher expectations come with it. Just as we buy fine art for the story behind it, the craftsmanship makes us appreciate the work. In a world of AI-generated content, trust is essential. Adobe, a pioneer in content authenticity initiatives, is leading the charge.

As audiences are inundated by content overstimulation, the bar for what constitutes a valuable experience will rise. We will no longer seek scale and efficiency alone—we will seek meaning and scarcity. Engagement will shift from being driven by content to being driven by meaning.

As AI continues to elevate both productivity and creativity, the organizations that embrace these changes will be the ones to lead the charge in this new era of marketing. Is your organization ready to harness the power of AI?

‍We’re committed to helping advance the industry to a new view of what advertising and creative can be in the digital age. Stay tuned on our blog over the coming weeks for more inspiring takeaways from ADVANCE, and follow the event discussion on social media with the hashtag #ADVANCESmartly2024.