When and When Not to use AI in Your Business... hint, it's not creativity.

Alexander Fahie TAISK

I’ve just had the most peculiar experience – I watched Coca-Cola’s latest Christmas advert, and I hate it.

You see, it wasn’t just any advert. It was an AI-created montage of festive spirit – a poor bastardisation of an ad that we all grew up with.

As holy to this period as mince pies, untangling Christmas lights and Band Aid's 1984 classic Do They Know It's Christmas?.

If it's perfect, why try to improve it. Especially if improving it makes it worse.

Now, you might be pondering,

"Why the surprise? AI has already wormed its way into the creative landscape like a determined squirrel after a stray conker."

Marvel used it to hammer out titles for "Secret Invasion", Netflix’s tinkered with it in a documentary, and somewhere in the ether, Will Smith’s digital doppelgänger is eternally twirling spaghetti. But witnessing it commandeer a Coca-Cola Christmas ad – the bastion of holiday cheer – felt like catching Rudolph cavorting with a malfunctioning drone.

That is not how he got his red nose!

AI for Productivity, a Closer Look

As you'll know, I am a massive believer in AI for productivity, but my interest lies more in back-office processes. I love the idea of tasks that typically take teams of people, days if not weeks to complete rescinded to autonomous agents.

And, on the face of it, this is what Coca Cola achieved. On release Coca-Cola were quick to point out that this ad took a mere 17 artists to churn out 18,000 images over three weeks.

But the result, unlike the augmentation of back-end tasks is less than ideal.

From soulless emotions showing on the delighted faces of the crowd to a close-up of the Coca-Cola trucks, with not one wheel spinning. It’s almost as if there’s no need to strive for more than the bare minimum now that AI is involved, reducing the effort required. As the trucks glide into town, we’re introduced to some unsettlingly lifelike figures. There are two people smiling, but a closer look reveals a sadness in their eyes. There's a woman staring directly at you, yet inexplicably through and beyond you. There’s also a guy in the back who seems to be attempting a wink – did you catch that? It appears intentional. By this point, it’s evident these figures aren’t real people; they are artificial renditions shaped by machine learning, portraying what AI imagines human emotions to look like.

Check it out for yourself:

But, there are better ways to use AI for productivity.

Using AI appears to be a conversational gambit – perhaps that was Coca-Cola’s aim all along. To be talked about. To spark dialogue (what meta genius). Yet, for us hapless onlookers, it does tend to feel like we've wandered into an uncanny valley and spilled our hot chocolate in the process.

In my next newsletter, once the nausea has worn off I will talk about where AI can really make a difference.