They’ll use the tech just like the rest of us unless their elders are around.

Working in marketing, I’ve already witnessed numerous agencies using AI to create variations of graphics and copy for A&B testing. However, this type of creative work is and has been fairly soulless to begin with.

I primarily work in the video production side of marketing. I’m certain product videos will be one of the first areas to go. When AI can generate millions of variations of your product in various settings, colors, etc then there’s absolutely no need for a human to perform these tasks.

With that being said, the area I believe will be difficult for AI to fully replace will be storytelling that’s unpredictable. I work with many nonprofits creating mini documentaries for fundraising purposes. A lot of companies do this but many fail to create an emotional connection with the audience. The amount of time we spend building trust with our subject to get the best presentation of their story is critical. We then plan ways to create opportunities for emotional sequences to unfold. This could be presenting the subject with a physical newspaper featuring their story, visiting a loved one’s grave, walking through a vacated building they experienced homelessness, etc. We go into these settings understanding they could give us genuine emotions to capture but there’s an element of improv where a lot of the magic happens that we just can’t predict beforehand.

Will AI be able to have this same level of understanding and personal connection to a subject? I find it difficult to believe we’ll see this anytime soon as it requires humans to reach a level of comfort with AI to open up. And even if this is achieved, how is a director of marketing for a nonprofit going to understand how to prompt an AI on these intricate and sensitive details when they can’t even craft these stories on paper without the help of someone like myself before AI?

The way I see it is humans enjoy experiencing the little quirks and details that make us humans.

It’s similar to how Pizza Hut can make a pizza in 10 minutes at any of their franchises around the world, for a fraction of the cost, that’s good enough but yet when given the choice many people will prefer to eat at the local pizza joint where pizzas are handcrafted by a family that’s been doing it for 50 years. There’s totally a market for both but as humans we place value on doing things the more personal and at times difficult way.

Documentary Filmmaker here, in regards to screenwriting, have you had any success using AI for tasks such as transcript selection (provide the AI your story arc, characters and their associated roles, then let it identify the best talking points from each?)

Also curious how far off we are from AI being able to perform busy editing tasks like cutting b-roll, coloring footage, correcting audio, etc….would love more info.

I own a production house and these are all areas we tend to get bottlenecked. Would love to see what solutions are available already and what’s coming next in this area.