With Coca-Cola's CMO claiming that advertising produced through generative AI will become the norm in the near future, Spotify introducing gen AI ads, and the rise in AI-powered media buying tools, it seems like AI is set to infiltrate almost every stage of the advertising process. As AI becomes more ubiquitous, human creativity and the unmistakable 'human touch' may grow even more valuable. In a landscape increasingly dominated by algorithmically-curated content, humanity itself could become a form of currency.
Generative AI technologies have been heralded by some as making the creative process more accessible for brands, but as AI generated 'creatives' take up more and more ad space, real creativity and real faces will have a distinctive currency in the market. In a world saturated with beauty filters, cosmetic enhancements, and AI-crafted ‘perfect’ faces on social media, some argue that imperfections may soon become a form of social currency.
Similarly, in advertising, viewers may come to see human flaws as signals of authenticity. In the February 2025 edition of our QT, 66% of Brits said that they fear a lack of human contact in the future due to AI – a significant increase vs. 2023. Brands embracing AI in visual creatives will risk the 'uncanny valley effect', where our brains are unsettled by something that looks almost – though not quite – real. This reaction, rooted in our evolutionary need to recognise real faces, could work against brands trying to build genuine, emotional connections with their audiences.
Human-first creative shouldn’t be reserved for big brands with the budgets to hire artists. In fact, brands that lean into the raw, the imperfect, and the handmade may find strength in that very authenticity. We might see a rise in the hand-drawn or hand-written in response to AI art, or the opportunity to feature flawed, unmistakeably human faces in creative – such as Dove, which has committed to avoiding AI-generated faces in its 'Real Beauty' campaigns. Moreover, IRL experiences have the potential to have more impact in a sea of machine-generated content: murals, livestreams, and experiential events will be able to stand out as distinctively human.
Despite all the noise and uncertainty, Generative AI does not signal the end of creativity and humanity in the advertising industry. If brands embrace the human touch as a creative strategy, their ability to signal authenticity and create genuine human connection will only grow.
Source: Marketing Week, Campaign
