Will AI Change How People Approach Creative Work?

Artificial intelligence (AI) is more than just a job-eliminating technology. It also has the potential to change how people approach creative work.

In July, Wrike and EdgePeak Consulting surveyed 1,552 “creative professionals” who work in various fields including design, art, film, video production and advertising. The researchers found that 85% of respondents believed that AI will have a significant impact on their creative output in the next two years. No other emerging technology was expected to have an impact this big.

AI is already being used to write stories and pop songs. Designers use AI to automate basic tasks like tagging images and analyzing data sets. Among marketers, AI has been used to search for new groups of users to serve ads to, change an ad’s message on the fly to make it better align with a user’s preferences and spit out thousands of versions of ad copy that can be A/B tested rapidly.

Although many companies are considering investing in AI, integrating it into a marketer’s workflow is much more difficult than flipping a switch and letting the machine do all the work.

In a February BrightEdge survey of over 500 content, digital and search marketers worldwide, nearly a third of respondents said that applying AI in their current role was the strongest barrier to adoption. Other obstacles included the lack of a standard definition for AI and limited budgets for exploring emerging technologies.