How Gen AI is redefining creative potential into perpetual momentum

There's a moment in every creative briefing when someone asks, "What if we tried this?" It's the spark that births campaigns, the question that opens possibilities. But generative AI has quietly rewritten that ritual. Now, the question isn't ‘what if?’ anymore. It's ‘what's next?’. Because by the time you've imagined it, the machine has already rendered three versions, tested two, and optimized one for your target audience.

The creative process isn't just faster. It's fundamentally different. And the advertising industry, caught between the thrill of velocity and the vertigo of obsolescence, is trying to figure out whether it's riding a revolution or just another hype cycle with better graphics. What's certain is this: AI isn't waiting for permission to reshape the rules. It's already rewriting them, one prompt at a time.

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Maninder A Singh, Innovation Head at Rediffusion, frames it sharply, saying, "AI-driven creativity isn't a productivity hack; it's a paradigm shift. Productivity is what happens when a machine makes you faster; transformation is what happens when it makes you think differently," he says. "When Photoshop arrived, we didn't stop hiring photographers; we changed what photography meant. AI is doing the same to marketing. It's not a gimmick; it's a new grammar of imagination."

That grammar is being written fast. According to a recent Adobe-commissioned survey, 66% of Indian brands are already using generative AI, and 81% of Indian consumers expect such tools to be embedded in brand experiences. Globally, Salesforce reports that 51% of marketers are using generative AI, with another 22% planning to adopt it soon. Roughly 53% of marketers already call AI a game changer for their role, and 71% say it will eliminate tedious busywork, freeing them to focus on strategy. The numbers suggest AI isn't knocking on the door anymore. It's already seated at the creative table.

Speed as strategy, or just noise at scale?

Speed has always been currency in advertising. The faster you conceive, the faster you pitch, the faster you produce, the faster you own the conversation. Generative AI supercharges that velocity. What once took weeks can now take hours.

Muthoot Finance, for instance, used AI to co-create the script for its Sunheri Soch campaign, a narrative about a woman's entrepreneurial success. The AI-authored storyline dramatically cut production overheads and turnaround time. V-Guard ran an election-themed digital campaign where products were personified as electoral candidates, complete with an AI-generated newsreader delivering mock bulletins. It was timely, topical, and technically ambitious.

But speed alone doesn't guarantee impact. Neville Shah, CCO at FCB Kinnect, is blunt about the trade-offs. "The other misnomer is that AI is cheap. Good AI is not cheap," he says. "You can put up stuff that is one point and shoot, one thing. Then you'll cut to it, you'll have a consistency problem. It costs money to fix all this. It is possible, but it costs money to fix all this."

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Singh echoes the caution. "Of course, there's a trade-off, there always is when volume becomes the new virtue. AI gives us the ability to make a thousand versions of the same ad before breakfast. But the question is, do we really need a thousand versions of mediocrity?" he asks. "Cheap doesn't automatically mean effective. Automation tempts brands to replace thought with throughput. The danger isn't that AI will make bad ads faster; it's that marketers will stop noticing."

The tension is real. Speed can be an advantage, but only when it's matched with intent. Otherwise, as Singh puts it, "speed without story is spam. Scale without craft is noise." The brands that win the AI era, he argues, will be those that remember one timeless truth: people may click for convenience, but they stay for emotion.

Cheaper and faster, but at what cost?

If speed is contentious, economics is downright messy. There's a widespread belief that generative AI slashes costs. And in some cases, it does. Marketers surveyed by Salesforce expect to save over five hours per week per person, amounting to more than a month per year. BuzzFeed used DALL·E 2 to instantly generate hundreds of quirky images for social ads, a task that would have taken designers days. Brands report lower production costs by using AI-generated storyboards or visuals, and agencies can produce and test multiple ad variants quickly, optimizing messaging on the fly.

But the ground reality is more complicated. Shah dismantles the cost myth with surgical precision. "If I, as a CCO, have to spend time perfecting, if I have to see that edit 25 times and say do this, do that, I have to invest my own time cost there, right?" he explains. "So, I am not saying that AI is wrong. I am not saying that AI is bad. I am not even saying that you don't use AI. I am just saying that, remove this myth that it is cheap. Because to do great quality production, it requires time."

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He points to another layer: the pre-cost of building AI systems. "To develop that AI character, there would have been pre-cost, right? Who is accounting for that? Sure, you will amortize it over three to four years. That's fine. But there is a pre-cost. There is time gone into it. Also, the ₹20,000 is the typing and credits that you are buying. What about the person who is sitting and doing it? There is a humane cost to that."

Then there's the legal labyrinth. "As soon as you go to get AI content, their legal teams don't allow it," Shah notes. "Your legal team won't allow it. If you're a multinational, your legal team will not allow it. Because the laws around it are so not done yet that everyone is a little wary." The regulatory fog around AI-generated content, intellectual property, and actor rights is thick, and it's slowing adoption in risk-averse categories. Still, some brands are pushing through.

Publicis Groupe India recently launched an AI-powered content studio, a production facility with generative AI tools and CGI suites, designed to churn out personalized, localized, and contextual content at scale. As Publicis India's CEO put it, the studio merges creativity, technology, and scale to act as a true growth engine for clients.

Mainstay or marketing fad?

Every few years, the industry crowns a new saviour. Mobile. Programmatic. Influencers. The metaverse. So, is generative AI just the latest hype cycle, or is it fundamentally different?

Singh believes it's the latter. "In 2024, yes, AI feels novel because it still dazzles us with speed. But by 2030, it'll be invisible, like electricity. You won't call it AI-generated creativity, you'll just call it creativity," he says. "The real shift isn't in tools, it's in mindset: from campaign-thinking to system-thinking, from make one ad to train one model. Marketers who treat AI as a passing productivity wave will surf it briefly. Those who treat it as a structural redesign of how ideas are made, tested, and evolved in real time will own the ocean."

Ramya Ramachandran, Founder and CEO of Whoppl, shares a similar view, though with a note of caution. "AI is changing how brands think and create. It shows how machines can actually spark new storytelling ideas. But the real test is balance. AI can make things faster and smarter, sure, but creativity still needs that human spark, emotion, intuition, the nuances that make stories real. The future's about collaboration between human imagination and machine intelligence," she says.

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The data support longevity over fad status. According to Gartner's 2025 Hype Cycle, generative AI is entering the Trough of Disillusionment after explosive early excitement. Organizations have invested heavily, over $1.9 million on average in 2024, yet many industry leaders are still unhappy with immediate returns. The takeaway: not every AI experiment will succeed, and unrealistic expectations must be tempered. Gartner advises that long-term value from AI comes through integration, data readiness, and governance, not one-off viral outputs. Treat AI as a sustainable capability, not a magic bullet.

Globally, McKinsey found 33% of companies already use generative AI in some function, with 40% planning more investment due to its advances. EY India projects that generative AI could add $359 to 438 billion to India's GDP by 2030, underscoring its potential economic impact beyond marketing. This isn't a pilot anymore. It's a transition.

Shah acknowledges the momentum. "In one year, the difference that has come in the ease of doing AI production is tremendous. In just one year. Last year, we struggled with a one-minute film. This year, it is much easier," he says. But he's also pragmatic. "Are we absolutely there yet? I don't think so. I think we're not very far away. Because they drop something every day. But we're still far away from getting to be able to do an AI-led film that is par excellence."

Who's actually using it, and how?

If AI is reshaping the creative economy, it's worth asking: which brands are walking the walk? The answer is: more than you'd think, and in more ways than expected.

Heinz ran a viral campaign using DALL·E 2 to reimagine its iconic bottle in creative contexts like the Renaissance Ketchup Bottle. The AI-generated images racked up 850 million impressions worldwide and 38% higher social engagement compared to past campaigns. Nike released the "Never Done Evolving" ad for its 50th anniversary, an AI-driven video simulating a virtual tennis match between Serena Williams at age 18 and at 39. The innovative footage drew 1.7 million YouTube viewers, 1,082% more than Nike's typical content. Spotify uses AI to personalize audio ads and marketing, with brands like Starbucks and Adidas leveraging Spotify's AI tools to create dynamic, mood-based audio campaigns with significantly higher ROI. Spotify's AI-personalized ads saw a 2.7x lift in recall and approximately 20% higher clicks.

Closer home, Zomato is reportedly using AI to craft hyper-localized campaign taglines in regional dialects. Hindustan Unilever piloted AI-generated video ads designed specifically for rural audiences, matching local sensibilities. These aren't gimmicks. They're strategic deployments aimed at audience relevance and cultural resonance.

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But here's the thing: complete AI-generated campaigns are still rare. Most brands are blending AI with traditional production, using it for ideation, scriptwriting, storyboarding, or post-production enhancements.

Shah is candid about the reality. "Can you make presentation boards on AI? Yes. Can you make pitch docs and PPM decks, and all of that, on AI? Yes. Can you make reference videos? Yes. Can you do really short content under 10 to 12 seconds on AI? Sure, you can," he says. "But a film that is being made in AI plus production is more expensive than a film that's getting made in AI or just in production because that blending only takes so much time and so much brainpower."

The question of the audience is equally nuanced. Is AI-generated content just for Gen-Z or digital-first platforms? Not necessarily. While younger, digitally native audiences may be more forgiving of experimental formats, AI is being deployed across demographics. The tool is platform-agnostic. The execution determines the audience fit.

The human question AI can't answer

Amid all the talk of prompts, pixels, and productivity, the most important question remains stubbornly analog: what about the people?

Shah raises it repeatedly. "If there is no empathy, how can it become creative? I don't think it's a production conversation. At that point, I think it's a creative conversation," he says. "You're generating actors on TV and through AI, and you're doing all of that. So, there are again human and moral questions that need to be answered for AI. And I don't think the country has answered it yet. I don't think the world has answered it yet."

There's also the issue of jobs. "What about the person whose job you have taken? Those are morality questions, humane questions," Shah adds. “Some award shows are already stating that if a film has a certain percentage of AI, it won't be allowed for nomination. Why? Because the industry is trying to protect people's jobs, their craft, and the soul of the work.”

Singh frames it as a matter of preservation. "The best AI-led campaigns will be the ones where machines handle scale and humans preserve soul. Use AI for the scaffolding, but let the finishing be hand-carved. Otherwise, advertising risks turning into fast food, quick to serve, quick to forget," he says.

Ramachandran's view is collaborative, not competitive. "The future's about collaboration between human imagination and machine intelligence," she insists. That's the ideal. But it requires intention, discipline, and a willingness to resist the siren call of volume over value.

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Industry surveys reinforce this. Over 90% of Indian marketers emphasize transparency and ethics when deploying AI. Around 73% of Indian marketers say AI will enhance marketing but not replace human creativity. And 71% note that AI's lack of human context and creativity is a barrier, with 66% saying human oversight is required for quality control. The message is clear: AI can assist, but it can't replace. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

The new creative economy isn't just faster, it's different

What's emerging isn't just a more efficient version of the old system. It's a fundamentally different creative economy. One where content is no longer scarce, but curation is. Where production bottlenecks dissolve, but strategic clarity becomes the new constraint. Where anyone with a laptop can make an ad, but only those with taste, judgment, and emotional intelligence can make one that matters.

Singh captures this shift beautifully. "Marketers who treat AI as a passing productivity wave will surf it briefly. Those who treat it as a structural redesign of how ideas are made, tested, and evolved in real time will own the ocean," he says.

Ramachandran adds the human layer. "Creativity still needs that human spark, emotion, intuition, the nuances that make stories real."

And Shah grounds it in reality. "We are aware of the trauma it has gone through to be able to get to a quality that we are saying, okay, put it now."

Generative AI is not the end of creativity. It's the beginning of a new contract between human and machine, between speed and soul, between what if and what next. The brands, agencies, and creatives who thrive in this era won't be the ones who choose AI over humans or humans over AI. They'll be the ones who understand that the question was never either-or. It was always how, and for whom, and to what end. Because in the end, the tool doesn't make the work. The intention does.