Yael Biran has worked for the past 25 years as an animator for mostly corporate clients, capitalizing on her talent for colorful illustration, movement and figuring out what her customers want but do not know how to articulate. Recently, she sat on her couch at home, “freaking out” about her life’s work. She had several big expenses on the horizon, and her usual workflow of about a dozen annual projects had dwindled to three in the past year.
The reason was obvious: artificial intelligence (AI).
More of the clients and creative agencies she worked with were trying to do animation work themselves, and she suspects they were using AI tools to do so.
Biran is resigned to what that means for her. Another animation veteran she knows just retrained to be a gardener, and Biran is mulling new paths too, but she has a stark warning for what clients are about to lose: the people who challenge their terrible ideas.
“What we give to clients is the ability to say ‘no’ to their ideas,” Biran said. “They’re not visual people, and they know what they think they want, and then a lot times it really needs tweaking. Sometimes in a major way.”
The content that generative AI models can conjure can sometimes look as good as anything created by humans. Creative agencies have been using tools from New York-based video generation start-up Runway to develop concert backdrops for Madonna and graphics for CBS’ The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, often saying it saves them hours or even weeks of work.
Earlier this year, actor and movie producer Tyler Perry said he was halting an US$800 million studio expansion because of the release of OpenAI’s video generator Sora, whose capabilities he called “mind-blowing.”
Critics of the tech say that would lead to a flood of boring, derivative work in film and TV, as AI tends to spew a pastiche of pre-existing art, such as Biran’s swirling watercolor figures or the quirky cartoons that she creates. When companies use AI to generate animations for their own marketing, the effect could be worse, thanks to the relative lack of visual, creative thinkers among their ranks. They would use AI tools to churn out graphics that — as with Hollywood’s overuse of computer-generate imagery — look impressive, but fail to make a meaningful impression on other humans.
For example, one design agency tried making a short animated film graphic for a British healthcare provider that was meant to train doctors on their bedside manner. The script said medical professionals should listen carefully to their patients and avoid behaving like they were going through a checklist. Yet the resulting animation showed a physician sitting with a patient and a giant list being marked off above them.
That is not how visual communication works, Biran said.
“People will see a checklist and go away thinking: ‘checklist,’” she said.
When corporate clients try putting together a slideshow, they would also gravitate toward displaying some of the same text already being spoken in a presentation, but that can make a presentation more confusing. There is a reason for the phrase “a picture paints a thousand words.” Images can elevate subtext and advance a message, but figuring out which images are best requires people who are skilled at thinking visually, like Biran.
“We think in pictures, and we gravitate towards metaphors,” she said. “And so we can help identify the subtext.”
Corporate clients often believe they are visual thinkers, perhaps because so much of the content people see online is visual on platforms such as TikTok, YouTube and Reels. However, passively consuming graphical content does not mean you can do a decent job making it.
“AI can clearly enhance our capabilities, but some clients are now questioning the need to hire creatives,” said Leila Makki, who runs a video production company for brands and agencies.
A big reason might be the anticipation of OpenAI’s Sora.
“They’re genuinely uncertain, but dismissing creatives for AI is shortsighted and counterproductive,” Makki said.
Businesses would do well to avoid outsourcing too many aspects of creative work to AI, even as they shift much of their marketing spending — which for North America and Europe tends to hover at about 9 percent of capital expenditures — to generative AI.
Biran predicts that in a few years, more companies would realize they need visual thinkers, “and they will circle back and ask for our help.”
That might be an optimistic view, as generative AI models are only becoming more sophisticated, with the possibility of greater reasoning capabilities to boot. Nevertheless, companies would also need people who understand visual communication to challenge their ideas, and they would not get that from sycophantic AI models that do not experience color and sound. They would get that from humans, who would need to get paid.
Parmy Olson is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering technology. A former reporter for the Wall Street Journal and Forbes, she is author of We Are Anonymous. This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
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