Taste is the new craft
When anyone can generate a thousand images in an afternoon, the images are no longer the bottleneck. Selection is. Quality has moved from execution to judgement — and that changes what to look for in a creative partner.
Generation is cheap, direction is not
Generative AI produces endless variation without getting tired. But variation without intent is just noise. The most discussed example is Coca-Cola's AI-generated Christmas ad, which drew debate two years in a row. The critique was rarely about the technology itself. It was about the sense that creative will was missing.
The lesson is not that AI belongs in the bin. The lesson is that technology without clear direction feels empty, and that audiences notice the difference immediately. Just as it has always worked in creative work, in other words.
Curation as method
In our studio, ninety percent of the process is decisions. A moodboard becomes a locked aesthetic, the aesthetic becomes a cast, the cast gets scenes to live in. Every generation is then tested against the rules of the world. Does this look like us? Does the light move like our light? Would our character do this?
This is also AI's most honest limitation. It has no intent. It does not know why an image is right, only what is statistically likely. Why is a human job — and that is where a creative team earns its place.
What to demand from a partner
Do not first ask which tools an agency uses. Tools get replaced every six months. Ask how they choose. Ask to see the rules of the world, their do's and don'ts, and examples of what they rejected and why.
Premium does not arise from luck in generation. It is built by construction. A partner who can show their system delivers the same quality in image one hundred as in image one.
