AI To Get More Creative in 2024
At the Australian fashion business Jag, graphic designers use digital software to put different outfits on photographs of models.
The models are paid a "usage fee" for striking various poses, but Jag designers can multiply the potential of the photographs by using the images with several garments.
This isn't quite a fashion AI yet, but other sections of the Australian fashion industry are already embracing it.
Wrapd is a discount sales platform and recently released an entire campaign created solely by AI.
Where their first advertising and marketing shoot cost AUD30,000, this cost AUD60.
The view at Wrapd is that they are not doing any models or photographers out of a job because they have no money to pay them.
Age of creativity
These are examples of what research firm Forrester called out in its 2024 predictions about how AI will "spur the age of creativity."
“Enterprise AI initiatives will boost productivity and creative problem solving by 50%,” says Forrester in its Predictions 2024 guide released this month.
“Building on multiple investments over the past decade, generative AI is poised to increase productivity across IT operations,” the guide says.
“Current projects already cite improvements of up to 40% in software development tasks.
Visionary tech execs will seize this opportunity to strategically realign IT resources to unlock the immense creative potential within their teams—not just among developers but across all IT roles.”
“Like it or not, know it or not, genAI will seep into consumers’ lives seamlessly and invisibly.”
These teams, says Forrester, will then leverage this AI moment to create an environment that promotes innovation, interdisciplinary teamwork, continuous learning, and alignment with the broader business strategy.
It would also free up to 50% more time for employees to engage in creative problem-solving, driving customer-centric innovation and creating unprecedented business value.
“Businesses will benefit as their tech teams provide products and services that deliver better, more innovative customer experiences,” says the guide.
“Behold the age of creativity.”
Against this background, Forrester predicts that the top 10 agencies will spend USD50 million in partnerships to build custom AI solutions for enterprise clients.
“Agencies will bet big on ‘brand-specific’ AI models, formed by a combination of foundational AI models from tech partnerships, their own audience and creative intelligence, clients’ first-party data, and the brand’s standards,” the guide says.
“These customized brand language models will enable marketers to (finally) scale personalized marketing campaigns and brand experiences. The announcement of ChatGPT Enterprise only accelerates investments.”
Several agency holding companies, including Accenture, Dentsu, Omnicom, Publicis, and WPP, are well underway in customizing their solutions with foundational AI models, having inked deals with multiple AI providers such as Adobe, Anthropic, AWS, Google, IBM, Meta, Microsoft, NVIDIA, and OpenAI.
Skeptics will use it
As a result of this impetus, Generative AI will seep into consumers' lives, and 60% of skeptics will use generative AI, even though they might not know it.
Forrester suggests that much of the ethical concern about AI is because the technology is poorly understood.
However, it says that 50% of U.S. and 43% of French online adults who have heard of AI say that generative AI threatens society. That number is not going to decrease anytime soon. But many of these people will quickly be using AI.
“Tech companies are embedding genAI capabilities into their platforms and tools and into the apps and products that consumers use every day,” the Forrester guide says.
“Adobe Photoshop’s generative fill feature works like magic; Google search allows users to opt in for Bard; and LinkedIn’s AI-generated content helps create posts for users.
“Like it or not, know it or not, genAI will seep into consumers’ lives seamlessly and invisibly.”
Hitting a wall
What won't happen, says Forrester, is a boom in AI processing. Instead, it will "hit a wall in 2024" as the "mad dash" for AI, which has created demand for GPUs and related chip production, hits its limits.
“Limited chip availability will drive common sense and tamper down irrational AI expectations,” the guide says.
“This shortage will most acutely affect large buyers such as Meta, OpenAI, Tesla, and various cloud providers. Lofty ambitions for billion-parameter large language model (LLM) applications will feel the pinch, but more modest enterprise efforts should be fine.”
Forrester predicts that these hardware issues will tamper ambitions and that aspirants will be forced to prioritize applications, settling on those with the most obvious ROI.
Lachlan Colquhoun is the Australia and New Zealand correspondent for CDOTrends and the NextGenConnectivity editor. He remains fascinated with how businesses reinvent themselves through digital technology to solve existing issues and change their business models. You can reach him at [email protected].
Image credit: iStockphoto/Paper Trident
