One of the joys of being a journalist is that creative people are typically willing, determined even, to share their stories with me. Unfortunately, it’s not always appropriate to share these stories with the public, as it could potentially damage them or their employers’ reputation. And Creative Boom is all about building creatives up, not knocking them down.
It’s safe to say, though, that recently I’ve heard stories that sound a lot like the following…
A panicked client rings the agency, saying they want to completely change their campaign three days before launch. Not because the work was wrong, but because it felt empty. Soulless, they said.
So the million-dollar question is: was AI involved in creating this campaign? In truth, sometimes yes, sometimes no. But in a world drowning in AI slop, clients are starting to run scared. They’re starting to wonder: since this work is so generic, will they be accused of using AI, even if it’s not the case?
All of which gives me hope that there are human skills which AI cannot replicate, that will keep us creatives not just employed, but indispensable over the long term.
So what actually are these skills? Here are five key areas where I believe people will always trump lines of code.
1. Being able to read people (not just data)
Once, I watched a junior designer spend six hours perfecting a logo in digital software. Every pixel was geometrically perfect. Finally, an experienced art director glanced at the brief, sketched three ideas on Post-it notes and nailed exactly what that specific client needed. The difference? The art director understood the client’s business and the challenges it was facing. They understand how that particular person thinks, the pressures they were under, and their vision for the future. They could, in short, read between the lines.
AI can spot positive or negative words in text, but it can’t sense the awkward silence when the boss’s boss walks into a meeting. It can’t see the tiny flinch that tells you your concept hits too close to home, or catch the moment when scepticism turns to excitement.
A friend was giving a presentation to a medium-sized software company once. His data said his idea made sense. But something about the founder’s body language—crossed arms, tight shoulders—told him he’d missed the mark.
Instead of pushing ahead with his polished presentation, he stopped and asked about the client’s father, who’d started the company. The ensuing conversation wasn’t about fonts or colours. It was about family legacy and what the business really meant.
My friend never actually took the project in the end, but he left on good terms, having nailed what mattered beyond the brief.
2. Life experience
AI learns from internet content, which means it inherits all the internet’s blind spots and biases. It may know basic facts like “red means luck in China but danger in the West”.