AI in creativity means using generative and agentic AI inside the creative process (to research, generate options, draft, produce and test) while people decide what the idea is and whether it is any good. AI widens the field of possibilities and compresses production. It does not supply taste, judgement or the reason a piece of work should exist.
That is the view from inside a working studio in London, where human creative directors and AI agents work the same brief every day. This piece is about what that actually looks like: where AI makes creative work better, where it makes it worse, and how to keep the difference.
Is AI creative? The honest answer
Creativity in advertising has always been two jobs. The first is generation: producing lots of possible routes, lines, images and ways in. The second is judgement: knowing which one is true to the audience, right for the brand and strong enough to survive a media plan. AI has become extraordinarily good at the first job. It is still poor at the second, because judgement depends on context it does not have: the client's history, the category's clichés, the thing everyone in the room has quietly stopped believing.
So the useful question is not whether AI is creative. It is which part of the creative process you hand to it, and who stays accountable for the result.
Where AI expands creativity
Adoption is no longer the story. Adobe's 2025 Creators' Toolkit survey of more than 16,000 creators found that 86% are now actively using creative generative AI, and IAB research reports that 83% of ad executives say their company has deployed AI in the creative process. What matters is what that use buys you.
- Breadth before the first meeting. Agents can map a category's visual and verbal territory, surface the routes every competitor has already taken and push past the first ten obvious ideas, so the team starts its thinking where others stop.
- Craft at the speed of a conversation. Moodboards, animatics, voice tests and rough cuts that used to take a week can be ready the same afternoon, which means ideas get judged on something close to the finished thing rather than on a description of it.
- More variants, tested earlier. When producing a version costs minutes rather than days, you can adapt one idea for each platform and market and learn from real responses instead of guessing.
Where AI flattens creativity
The same speed that widens the search can also narrow the result. In WFA research published in June 2026, 58% of multinational brand owners said they had genuine concerns about creative homogeneity and “a sea of creative sameness”, and only 11% said they had a common, agreed vision for using AI to drive creative excellence.
Audiences notice the difference too. In Kantar's analysis of AI-generated ads, ads where generative AI was used seamlessly performed better, with over 40% landing in the top tier for branded cut-through; ads with distracting or unnatural visuals did worse. The lesson is not “use less AI”. It is that AI used without a strong human point of view produces work that looks like everyone else's, and looks like AI.
How a hybrid studio splits the work
At Brave New World® every brief runs through the same split. Agents accelerate and widen; people decide. Here is how it works stage by stage.
| Stage | What the AI agents do | What the people do |
|---|---|---|
| Insight | Research the audience and the category, gather signals and flag the tensions worth exploring. | Choose the human truth the work will stand on, and throw out what is merely interesting. |
| Idea | Generate and stretch routes, and check them against what has already been done. | Pick the idea, sharpen it and decide what the brand should actually say. |
| Scoring | Score every concept against a reference set of 3,000+ award-winning campaigns from 12 award shows. | Read the scores as evidence, not as a verdict: a low score can mean the idea is genuinely new. |
| Craft and production | Produce imagery, film, sound and versions through our London studio, in AI-native, live-action or hybrid modes. | Art-direct, edit and hold the line on quality. |
| Sign-off | Nothing. The agents never sign work off. | A human creative director approves every asset before a client sees it. |
The agents that do this are part of our Creative Intelligence System: eight agents working across three engines, built on 16 years of award data.
Creativity under new rules in the UK and EU
Creative freedom with AI now comes with clearer rules on both sides of the Channel. This is a summary, not legal advice.
- United Kingdom. The ASA and CAP are explicit that there is no blanket legal requirement in the UK to disclose the use of AI in ads. The test is whether the audience is likely to be misled without disclosure, and whether a disclosure would clarify or contradict the message. Disclosure alone is very unlikely to rescue a fundamentally misleading ad.
- Industry guidance. The Advertising Association's Best Practice Guide (February 2026) sets out principles covering transparency, data use, fairness, human oversight, harm prevention, brand safety, environmental considerations and continuous monitoring.
- European Union. Article 50 of the EU AI Act requires deployers of deepfakes to disclose that content has been artificially generated or manipulated, from 2 August 2026. Where the content is part of an evidently creative, satirical or artistic work, the duty is limited to disclosure in a way that does not hamper the display or enjoyment of the work.
For brands running campaigns across the UK and Europe, the practical answer is the same: decide your disclosure approach at the brief, not after the edit.
What this means for creative people
The skills that rise in value are the ones AI cannot fake: writing a sharp brief, recognising a real insight, editing ruthlessly, art-directing a machine and knowing when something is finished. The hours spent on production drudgery fall; the hours spent on judgement rise. That is a better job, not a smaller one.
Frequently asked questions
Can AI be creative?
AI can generate original-looking combinations at enormous speed, but it does not know which of them matter. Creativity in advertising is generation plus judgement: choosing the idea that is true to the audience and right for the brand. AI is strong at the first half; the second half is still human.
Will AI replace creative jobs?
It is changing them faster than it is removing them. The slow, manual layer of creative work is being automated, so the skills that rise in value are briefing, editing, art direction and taste: deciding what to make and knowing when it is good.
Do AI-generated ads perform as well as human-made ones?
It depends on how the AI is used. In Kantar's analysis of AI-generated ads, those that used generative AI seamlessly performed better, with over 40% landing in the top tier for branded cut-through, while ads with distracting or unnatural visuals did worse.
Does AI make creative work look the same?
It can. In WFA research published in June 2026, 58% of multinational brands said they had genuine concerns about creative homogeneity and a sea of creative sameness. The fix is not less AI but stronger human direction: a distinctive insight and a clear point of view before any tool is opened.
Do you have to label AI-generated creative work in the UK or EU?
In the UK there is no blanket legal requirement to disclose AI use in ads; the ASA asks whether the audience would be misled without it. In the EU, Article 50 of the AI Act requires disclosure of deepfakes from 2 August 2026, in a lighter form for evidently creative or artistic work.
Further reading: What Is an AI Creative Agentcy?, AI Ad Agencies Explained and How to Choose an AI Creative Agency. Want to see this on your own brief? Send us a brief.