In the Age of AI, Creativity Still Needs Human Judgment

Since artificial intelligence entered the advertising ecosystem, it has fundamentally altered how campaigns are conceived, executed, and delivered. Its rise has also intensified the pressure on brands and agencies to move faster, stay relevant, and respond in real time to trends shaping consumer behaviour.

In 2021, few could have predicted the scale of success achieved by ‘Shah Rukh Khan My Ad’ by Mondelez International. Designed to support small local retailers during the pandemic, the campaign used AI and machine learning to generate thousands of hyper-personalised advertisements in which Shah Rukh Khan appeared to call out individual store names. The result: a reported 35 percent increase in Diwali sales.

Yet, AI’s growing role in creativity has also exposed its limitations. In 2024, Coca-Cola faced criticism for its AI-generated Christmas commercial—a recreation of its iconic 1995 ‘Holidays Are Coming’ campaign—which many viewers felt lacked emotional depth. A year later, McDonald’s Netherlands withdrew an AI-created Christmas ad after widespread backlash online, highlighting growing public fatigue with generative imagery that prioritises efficiency over feeling.

These contrasting examples underline a central debate within the industry: while AI can enhance execution, can it truly deliver creative excellence without human judgment?

The idea must remain human-led

Neville Shah, Chief Creative Officer at Kinnect, believes creative excellence rests on three pillars—idea, craft, and execution. While craft and execution are increasingly being augmented by AI, the idea, he insists, must remain human-led.

According to Shah, AI can significantly improve efficiency across workflows, project management, and execution timelines. “Where AI truly helps is in speeding up execution—whether it’s image, video, or audio generation,” he says. “But the starting point should always be a human idea.”

Shah argues that human judgment becomes most critical once AI begins producing outputs. Creative professionals must assess multiple drafts, evaluate emotional texture, and decide what feels authentic to a brand. “You look at the output and say—this lands closer to the emotion, this feels more right,” he explains. “But even then, the work needs refinement, reworking, and pushing further.”

For Shah, speed without discernment poses a real risk. “Speed without judgment leads to volume. And volume without thought only creates clutter,” he cautions.

Drawing the line between assistance and authorship

One of the biggest challenges agencies face today, Shah says, is defining boundaries—clearly outlining where AI can assist and where human judgment is non-negotiable. This clarity must extend to how young creatives are trained and how AI is integrated into daily workflows.

“There will always be people who rise above the noise and people who blend into it,” Shah notes. “The difference lies in clarity of intent—knowing where AI helps and where humans must lead.”

Ashish Khazanchi, Managing Partner at Enormous, echoes this view. Creativity, he says, has always followed a familiar rhythm: exploration followed by judgment. AI may accelerate exploration, but judgment remains inherently human.

Khazanchi draws parallels with earlier shifts in creative tools. “Once upon a time, art directors worked with butter paper and pencil. Then came CorelDRAW and Adobe Illustrator,” he says. “But those tools never decided layouts—people did. The same principle applies today. Tools evolve; decision-making does not.”

While AI may eventually take over the bottom of the pyramid—mundane, repetitive outputs—that is not where meaningful brands or impactful campaigns are built, Khazanchi argues. Strong work emerges from discussion, debate, co-creation, and the ability to defend a point of view. “AI cannot do that,” he adds.

The risk of sameness and safe creativity

Khazanchi warns that allowing AI to dictate brand communication can lead to creative stagnation. Over-reliance, he says, results in work that merely synthesises the past. “AI can automate the mundane, but invention and breakthroughs—whether in insight, execution, or cultural relevance—cannot come from a system trained entirely on what already exists,” he explains.

The outcome, he cautions, is advertising that feels familiar, repetitive, and safe.

He also questions the industry’s growing obsession with speed, particularly the push for constant topical content. “Communication should not exist for the sake of activity; it should exist to create impact,” Khazanchi says. “If that takes more time, so be it.”

Beyond output, he highlights a deeper concern: the erosion of mentorship. Earlier generations of creatives learned through apprenticeship—by observing seniors, iterating slowly, and absorbing feedback over time. Today, compressed timelines and expanding scopes of work have reduced space for reflection and learning.

“The ‘shower time’—the time to absorb influences and think deeply—has largely disappeared,” he explains. While the consequences may not be immediately visible, Khazanchi believes this shift will affect leadership quality and creative judgment in the years ahead.

Reflecting on his own work, he cites the iconic Tata Sky campaign ‘Isko Laga Dala Toh Life Jingalala’ as an example of human-led creativity. “We weren’t responding to existing patterns—we were creating a new cultural reality,” he says. “That kind of leap cannot come from analysing the past.”

While AI will help brands go to market faster—especially for less ambitious communication—Khazanchi is clear about where true impact comes from. “Work that breaks new ground will always depend on human intuition, courage, and judgment. Impact, not output, is the point of communication.”

Culture, accountability, and lived experience

Prathap Suthan, Managing Partner and Chief Creative Officer at Bang In The Middle, adds another critical dimension to the debate: cultural depth. AI, he argues, lacks lived experience.

“It may know about a festival like Pongal, but it doesn’t understand the taste, texture, emotion, or rituals associated with it,” Suthan says. “It doesn’t know how sweet Pongal should be, how many cashews go into it, or the family memories and arguments that surround food.”

These nuances, he explains, are where originality is born. Stories rooted in lived experience—whether about generational differences in cooking or everyday neighbourhood dynamics—cannot be generated from data alone. Suthan also points to AI’s lack of accountability. “AI will happily give you five ideas and call all of them brilliant—even the mediocre ones,” he says. “It never rejects an idea. It never takes responsibility.”

For brands investing heavily in campaigns, that accountability is essential. “When ₹10 crore is on the line, someone has to stand up and say, ‘This will work,’” he notes. “AI can generate a script, but it won’t supervise a shoot, recast an actor at the last minute, or make judgment calls on set.”

Amplification, not replacement

Suthan believes AI will ultimately serve as an amplifier rather than a replacement. The most intelligent and creatively confident professionals will go much further with AI by their side, while others will struggle to keep pace.

“The gap between naturally intelligent, creative, AI-savvy people and the rest will only widen,” he says. “As long as intelligent people exist, they will lead. AI will never replace that—it will only amplify it.” As advertising continues to evolve, creative leaders remain united on one point: while AI may transform how work is executed, the soul of creativity—judgment, empathy, cultural understanding, and accountability—remains profoundly human.