In an age where technology is gradually becoming democratised, the question of what “irreplaceability” we can hold on to is one more and more people are asking.

It has taken only about a year for AI content to emerge and become widely applied across the advertising industry. Based on F5’s own first-hand experience, technology itself is not the barrier. As long as people are willing to learn and put in the time, most can learn to use AI to create images or videos.

In the early stages of a new market, development tends to be rough-and-ready and chaotic, with demand outstripping supply. The content may not be especially polished, but clients are often willing to accept it. The most important thing is to get content as quickly as possible and enjoy the technological dividend as quickly as possible. But every new demand gradually becomes saturated, and I have witnessed some era-defining shifts.

One trend worth pondering is that these windows of opportunity are closing faster and faster – so fast that they can be as short as one to two years. AI’s technological innovation is unlike the pure business-model innovation or replication of the past. But if we set aside the technological innovation itself, what benefits has the transformation of AI content actually brought us? Are those benefits sustainable? And what can we truly grasp and accumulate?

Where does AI content’s competitive edge come from?

When F5 first entered this field, we considered it repeatedly. Judging by how things have actually developed, there are two main aspects:

1. A significant reduction in budgets

Brand films that once cost millions to shoot can now be cut by half, or even more, thanks to AI. The final project cost depends on the experience level of the production staff you choose, but compared with traditional shoots, the cost savings are undeniably significant. This also makes it entirely possible for small and medium-sized brands to create their own brand content.

2. Empowering the imagination

Special-effects techniques that were once available only to big-budget Hollywood films can now be easily achieved with AI. For creatives, this is unquestionably a major boon. AI is gradually replacing traditional VFX production – or rather, enabling low-budget projects to use high-end effects. There is no longer any need to spend heavily on building physical sets; a few lines of text can produce the desired effect.

But…

Core competitiveness in an age of AI proliferation

In the past, advertising content, from creative development to production, was made by formally trained professionals. The advantage of “professionals” is that they raise the floor. Everyone has certain standards for their own output and for their reputation in the industry. The ultimate beneficiaries of those standards are in fact brands and the consumers of advertising.

For a brand, advertising content is not a disposable consumer good but a constantly accumulating brand asset, encompassing brand tone and brand favourability. Strictly speaking, it does not belong in the same category as watch-and-discard web series or purely comedic short videos. Taste and aesthetics are accumulated over the long term; they are the product of slow, careful work. They are the exact opposite of AI’s instant gratification. It is extremely difficult for a person to improve their taste and aesthetics quickly, and yet this is precisely the core competitiveness of content creators.

Long before AI emerged, the advertising industry – especially in China – was already facing a battle over “taste”. Some argue: never mind whether my content has aesthetic value; as long as it sells, that is enough. But the advertising industry itself commands public attention. Produce good content and give people a pleasurable experience or advertising just a “sales tool”.

Emotion and connection

At this year’s World Artificial Intelligence Conference, I heard a lecture by an MIT professor. He mentioned that American capital tycoons believe AI will replace humans, whereas China champions AI helping humans. Leaving aside the accuracy of that view, since AI has burst onto the scene, we should make every effort to ensure it becomes a tool, not a threat to or replacement for humanity. As a member of the post-’90s generation, I lived through a time before computers and smartphones. We never imagined that “human touch” would become a scarce resource. “A sense of being alive” and “authenticity” are the final solace this mad era offers us.

In an era when AI technology is about to have no barriers at all, whether your creativity can truly move people, and whether your content can touch a lonely soul late at night, is precisely the real competitiveness and scarcity. In creating and producing The Odyssey, Nolan did not use any AI, and barely used computer-generated effects at all. He worked with 70mm large-format film, almost hand-crafting the film.

Returning to the advertising creative industry itself, good content, good ideas, genuine emotion and resonance with individuals are the foundation on which this industry stands.

How should we respond to the industry’s upheaval?

People first, AI second. AI is a magnifying glass: it magnifies people’s talent, and it also magnifies their mediocrity. For individuals, peerhaps we should be finding what we are good at and using AI to amplify it? For companies, doing everything possible to recruit talented people is still the way forward.

Two examples: F5 recently produced an Earth Day film for Midea. It is a purely AI-made film: from content production to music production, everything was assisted by AI. But from the comments left by viewers on the brand’s official account, it is clear that many were moved by the content. A perfect fusion of “creativity” and “taste”, it is irrelevant whether it was made by AI; the emotion it conveys is real and can be felt.

Another AI short film, created for China Mobile around the World Cup, used exaggeration to highlight how convenient it is to claim World Cup perks through the China Mobile app. We had AI create some “big-budget” scenes, including an astronaut in outer space seeing the Earth queuing, and the spectacle of wildlife from the African savannah to the depths of the ocean joining the queue.

At the same time, the soundtrack was completed jointly by AI and humans. The Ode to Joy paid tribute to a China Mobile GoTone brand image commercial from many years ago, “Communication from the Heart”.

These ideas came from our creatives, not from AI. But AI helped us turn the “impossible” into the “possible” at minimal budget cost.

This is the true value AI brings us.