Is technology devaluing human creativity?

I was recently interviewed by Contagious, alongside other industry leaders, for a report on The Future of Marketing. AI was, unsurprisingly, a key topic of conversation. And rightly so!

Since then, I have been reflecting on one of the biggest challenges the industry was found to be facing in 2024: Technology devaluing human creativity. 

As the European CMO of one of the biggest technology companies in the world, I wanted to share my perspective on this. 

What does creativity mean to you? To me, it is a way of translating data and insight into human emotion and ideas that really resonate with people. 

My belief is that there are plenty of ways that AI can support marketers in being more creative, but it is the combination of the two; “technology + humans” that really makes the magic happen. 

As our computing power gets stronger and stronger, technology can take on more and more of what we do. But, just because it can, does not mean it always should. 

Data is super important for marketers and AI can now collect and process it at great speed to help us optimise campaigns. The killer insight that all great campaigns are built on can also be generated by AI, but we still need to layer human perspective on top to really bring it to life. 

A good example of this, I learnt from a previous role, was the launching of CompareTheMarket.com. It took a huge leap of faith by Mark Vile and team to get to the place where the campaign was about meerkats rather than price comparison. It has nothing to do with car insurance, but it is the campaign that everyone remembers. If you only focus on optimising the existing, and there are no creative thinkers to do the lateral leaping, then the likelihood is your campaign will not be so memorable. 

In my opinion, AI can also help creative minds be more creative. That might be by generating images that bring ideas to life visually, to quickly mockup storyboards, or to support me with spelling and note taking (Samsung phones have a transcript functionality that summarises what was said in meetings for you, very nifty use of AI).  

Our goal is to make AI more accessible, to democratise it and to transform how we connect with each other and the world around us.

It is no secret that we have been talking a lot about AI recently. Across our products we are integrating AI to make a difference to people’s lives. It’s about enhancing human experience. So making us more productive, more collaborative, more creative.

I recently sat next to Inma Martinez in a meeting discussing AI’s impact on society. She is an AI scientist and advises governments and corporations. I learnt that we, homo sapiens, are still evolving. From our brains to our physique thus making us do things that would be impossible in the past.

Can AI support the continuous human evolution and can it be applied to our abilities to think laterally, creatively and differently? 

I speak to a lot of people who say they are not creative. It is my belief that everyone is creative – you just need to find your own way of drawing it out. Technology can help you unlock your creative potential. By making suggestions, providing support and through optimisation, people can gain the confidence to start unleashing more and better ideas on the world. 

I would love to know - where do you stand when it comes to AI’s impact on creativity?