A brand is not something you build once and forget about – it requires constant maintenance. This means constantly churning out more creatives to support the brand. But constantly producing fresh marketing collateral as a business scales up can be stressful for creative teams. With tight deadlines and even tighter resources, creative teams need an extra hand. Here's where brand asset management tools and AI solutions help.

What is creative automation?

Creative automation is the use of software solutions to automate creative production in a business. Modern-day automation heavily relies on artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and other technologies to accelerate visual content development, allowing designers and marketers to create content more quickly and efficiently.

Creative automation can be used to generate a wide range of content, including social media posts, ads,, and other marketing collateral. By using automation tools, marketers and designers can save time and reduce costs while still maintaining high-quality standards.

How does AI enable creative automation?

There are many ways in which artificial intelligence helps with creative automation. Creativity is not bound by strict rules and hence the stochastic nature of AI helps a lot when it comes to creative automation. AI can be used in a generative manner to create content. Generative AI can help create or suggest content, assisting designers and writers with brainstorming. Machine learning, on the other hand, can help learn from data and make predictions or decisions based on that data. 

AI-enabled tools excel at creative automation. They can simplify repetitive tasks such as resizing images, creating social media posts, and scheduling email campaigns. This can help marketers and designers save time and focus on more strategic tasks.

Moreover, AI and ML in creative automation can help in creating personalized, intelligent ad creatives. They can help optimize design elements such as color, layout, and font choice based on data on user behavior and preferences. This can ensure that content is visually appealing and effective at capturing user attention.  

What are the Benefits of AI in Creative Automation?

Using AI tooling in creative automation can have multiple benefits. However, brands must keep in mind that such software solutions are merely assistive and cannot completely replace humans. Humans, on the other hand, need to learn how to effectively use AI-enabled creative automation solutions. Here are some of the benefits of using AI-powered creatives.

#1. Improved efficiency and TAT.

Creative scaling is a critical challenge as creative teams need to constantly produce more content that’s fresh, distinctive, and personal.  AI-powered creative automation solutions help in that regard. While content creation, design, and editing are still human-powered tasks, AI can help reduce the repetitive steps. This allows marketers and designers to focus on more strategic aspects of the content and reduce turnaround times. 

#2. Deeper personalization.

Using machine learning to sift through customer data, brands can make better decisions regarding marketing collaterals. Brands can use AI to develop more personalized content based on user data. This leads to higher engagement rates and improved customer satisfaction.

#3. Enhanced creativity.

Creative blocks are common with marketing and creative teams. Teams can often find it challenging to generate fresh ideas that align with diverse marketing requirements. With the help of AI, teams can now come up with creative ideas, designs, and content that may not have been considered otherwise. This can inspire new approaches and ideas, leading to more innovative and effective campaigns.

#4. Cohesive and consistent brand experience.

While AI does not directly help with consistent content generation, it can help perform certain repetitive tasks that are needed to ensure that the marketing collaterals adhere to the brand guidelines. Using the brand guidelines, AI can automate the process of creating marketing materials such as social media posts and advertisements, ensuring that all elements adhere to the established guidelines. For example, an AI system can automatically resize and reformat images to fit specific platforms, while also ensuring that the color scheme and typography remain consistent.

#5. Optimization of content.

AI can analyze data and help make decisions regarding content and design. For instance, it can suggest layout, color, and font choices, leading to more effective designs that capture user attention and improve engagement rates. They can also help optimize content elements such as headlines, descriptions, and calls to action.

#6. Saves time and cost.

By removing the need to attend to repetitive and mechanical tasks, AI-enabled creative solutions can help streamline the ideation and creation process, reducing effort for creators. For instance, AI can help with template-based designs, recommends intelligent assets, automates repetitive tasks, and facilitates iterative improvements. This time-saving benefit allows creators to produce a higher volume of quality content while allocating their energy to more strategic and creative aspects of their work. 

#7. Predictive analytics.

Predictive analytics has always been a strong suite of machine learning solutions. Businesses have already been using machine learning for decades to understand customer behavior, business trends, and more. Now, brands can leverage Creative Automation Software with AI to take informed decisions about content strategy and design, leading to more effective campaigns and better user experiences.

What are the limitations of AI in creative automation?

While AI-enabled tools can drastically simplify work, there are multiple limitations that brands must be aware of. Here are some of the key issues with using AI solutions for creative purposes.

#1. Shift in creative roles

AI-enabled tools will not replace employees but rather assist them. Instead of AI replacing people, it will be people using AI replacing people who don’t. Creative teams will need to get used to using AI-enabled creative automation tools to do their job more efficiently. Often, such tools may require knowledge that is outside the specialization of the team members. In the case of creative automation, team members need to understand how to effectively provide human input and oversight in the AI-enabled creative process. Team members who are not trained to effectively use such tools will be the primary limitation of AI-assisted creative automation solutions.

#2. Lack of creative judgment

While AI can generate ideas and designs, it cannot make creative judgment calls. For instance, AI can help you write the code, but it cannot create the product. AI can help you with making the designs, but it cannot produce truly innovative or groundbreaking marketing campaigns. This requires a deeper insight into human behavior. 

#3. Dependence on data quality

Most machine-learning models require copious amounts of data to be trained and deployed. These systems rely heavily on data to generate designs, optimize content, and identify areas of improvement. This means that the quality of the data used to train these systems is critical to their effectiveness and accuracy. This data may not always be representative or accurate, leading to designs that are not effective for a broader audience. Moreover, with inconsistent or inaccurate data, you may end up getting inaccurate recommendations or ineffective designs.

Moreover, in creative automation, there is a need for ongoing data management and maintenance. AI systems may need to be retrained or updated with fresh data as user preferences and behavior change over time. This can necessitate substantial resources and skills, especially for big or complicated data sets.

#4. The issue of bias and fairness.

Biases in the data used to train AI can be perpetuated. For example, if an AI system is educated on data that is biased toward a specific group of individuals, it may develop discriminating or unjust designs. Brands need to be extremely vigilant about such cases. 

#5. Inability to understand the context.

While AI can generate technically correct designs and content based on its training data, it may not be able to interpret and respond to the broader context of the campaign or project it is being used for. This can lead to designs or content that are inappropriate or ineffective for the intended audience or message. To alleviate this restriction, it is critical to offer context and direction to the AI system, so that the system can be trained on specific data sets and human intervention can be used only to augment or overrule its choices as needed.

What are the use cases for AI in Creative Automation?

The use cases of AI in creative automation depend on the software solutions and the creative teams who use them. Here are some examples of how creative teams can use AI for creative automation. 

#1. Content personalization

AI can help create personalized content for users based on their preferences, browsing history, and other data. For example, Netflix uses AI algorithms to recommend personalized content to users based on their viewing history.

#2. Increasing Engagement

Companies can use data from previous advertising campaigns to see what works and what does not. This allows them to create better marketing and engagement. For example, Toyota made use of IBM’s Watson Ads to create dynamic advertisements. Based on how the users engaged with the ads, Toyota made its product, supply chain, and marketing plans. This resulted in 37% higher engagement, a 20% increase in purchase consideration, and 6K user conversions.

#3. Content, design, and layout generation.  

AI can assist in the design and layout of digital and print media. AI-generated art often comes with imperfections, but it can be a great way to stand out from the crowd. Brands can use such artwork to simplify the design process or can just create quirky content. For example, Heinz went all the way and created an entire advertisement using only AI-generated images. 

#4. Image and Video Editing

AI can help with image and video editing, including object removal, background replacement, and color correction. A great example in this context is Adobe Sensei. The software solution allows creative teams to make simple yet essential edits to videos that would otherwise require extremely skilled video editing staff. 

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#5. Creative production

AI-powered creative automation solutions may substantially accelerate and scale creative production. These tools reduce manual and creative effort by automating monotonous processes, allowing team members to focus on more creative and strategic work. Creative management solutions with AI capabilities can improve collaboration between teams, even if they are geographically separated, with centralized access to assets and communication enabling teams to work together seamlessly. AI-powered sentiment analysis solutions may also assist teams in more successfully gathering feedback and insights from stakeholders and consumers. Artwork Flow’s creative automation solution, for example, can help you automate reviews and approvals through flexible workflows and automated alerts.

Future of AI in Creative Automation

The AI technologies that you are witnessing today have been in development for decades in universities and research labs. At present, with the commercialization of such technologies, more and more people are getting to see the potential of AI. 

In the future, creative tasks can be made more efficient and productive using such tools. We will see improved personalization through more personalized content and experiences for users. Greater integration with existing creative tools and software will make it easier for creative teams to adopt AI into their workflows, which remains a challenge. 

Additionally, the adoption of AI in creative automation is expected to expand into new industries beyond marketing and advertising. However, businesses still need to stay vigilant about ethical considerations, such as bias, privacy, and data security as the technology becomes more ubiquitous. 

Conclusion

The potential of artificial intelligence is enabling current marketing strategies to move quicker than ever before, allowing organizations to focus on higher-level growth objectives rather than being weighed down by manual advertising efforts.It's like having a helpful assistant with workflow automation, freeing up time for creativity and business expansion.

Creative automation platforms, such as Artwork Flow, are already available and may help businesses save time and money while improving conversion rates. Businesses can focus on scaling up and taking their operations to the next level with the flexibility provided by Artwork Flow. If you want to see how Artwork Flow can help your creative teams with automation, book a demo with our experts today. 

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