It’s going to revolutionise life as we know it, is generally the direction of conversation when it comes to AI, and its impact on pretty much anything. Across all the creative industries the impact it’s brought is heralded as either mind-blowing innovation or the end of civilisation, depending on how you see it.
While the long-term impact it will have on PR is an ongoing debate in itself, and without stating the bleeding obvious, the one clear key benefit for the industry is the ability to create outstanding conceptual imagery – absolutely game changing when it comes to selling ideas.
It’s probably fair to say, compared to counterparts in advertising, media buying and design, the ability of PR professionals to properly visualise ideas has been limited, especially for smaller agencies and those without sister creative support agencies. Typically, budget and time constraints inhibit using outside help, and instead the responsibility lands on team members with a talent for photoshop and power point.
During big pitches or client planning, an activation may receive some CAD treatment or even rarer, investment for artist scamps and mock ups of said idea and activation. However significant effort on this part of the creative process certainly wasn’t de rigueur or indeed as integral as would be the case with other creative disciplines.
But AI has totally levelled the playing field on this front. Everybody has the ability to create a prompt, put it through their image generator of choice and the campaign is literally there! And even if it’s way off on the first attempt, a few tweaks and revised words and it is there. Literally anyone can do it, and the output always looks impressive (depending on what AI model you are using!).
Clients can see the vision and totally buy into the concepts. Spontaneous and time sensitive ideas can be worked up and presented within a matter of minutes, ensuring swift sign off and execution. Everybody benefits!
We have access to a whole suite of AI tools through WPP Open – the AI platform for marketing, and the ongoing investment and development into the platform means it literally advances on a weekly basis.
And as AI technology evolves at break-neck speed, the visual capabilities are only going to improve further (way beyond turning people into action figures or creating not yet born future babies!) – especially when AI video catches up too.
Obviously, the use of AI content editorially and within creative work raises lots of ethical questions and wider debate (to be discussed by others with a greater expertise on the subject at another time) – but for showcasing ideas and ‘sealing the deal’, it feels like AI has provided PR with a momentous democratizer.
