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The Power and Pitfalls of Generative AI

How to Leverage AI’s Benefits While Creating Responsibly

A mysterious blue door stands open in a snowy landscape with northern lights above. Through the door, a sunny meadow with a tree is visible, contrasting the cold, wintry setting outside. Majestic mountains frame the scene under a starry sky.

Words by Sherry Tsang, Senior Designer

Published December 26, 2024

Last Updated December 26, 2024

Generative AI has taken the creative industry by storm, offering unprecedented opportunities to streamline workflows and spark inspiration while simultaneously presenting complex challenges and ethical concerns. As the technology continues to evolve and cement itself across various industries, we must embrace responsible integration–harnessing the benefits of these tools without compromising artistic integrity.

Benefits of Generative AI

Advancements in generative AI empower creative teams by expanding possibilities, extending resources, and improving accuracy. From ideation to execution, AI accelerates workflows, allowing more time for innovation while keeping projects on budget.

Here are some ways we use AI to enhance the creative process at NJI.

Expanding Possibilities

AI is helping creators push the boundaries of their designs, offering a wider range of themes and concepts to explore. In the early phases of project development, Generative AI can save time by quickly generating prototypes, suggesting layout options, and providing instant iterations based on input. This allows creators to focus more on refining and enhancing their vision, rather than starting from scratch.

In addition to streamlining client work, AI aids in the ethical debate of unpaid spec work. With generative AI, design teams can respond to proposal requests with bold, innovative ideas—without the more intensive human lift.

A lone figure walks through a surreal landscape with giant, glowing, tree-like mushrooms and vibrant, colorful foliage. A small stream reflects the fantastical scenery under a cloudy, turquoise sky.

Futuristic cityscape with towering, spire-like structures under a setting sun on an alien planet. A large skybridge curves through the city, surrounded by rugged mountains and pools of water reflecting the golden light.

A futuristic scene featuring two armored figures with intricate designs, standing in a high-tech environment. One figure has glowing blue elements, the other has radiant pink wings. A bright light emanates from the background.

Generative AI has the potential to amplify our conceptual ideas in the preliminary phases of presenting to clients. For example, when prompted to create images of ‘fantastical sci-fi,’ it produced a wide range of divergent outputs.

Optimizing Resources

AI can also save creators time by helping refine and enhance assets throughout the production process. Generative fill helps designers expand image backgrounds, remove unwanted distractions, and create more open space for layover text. AI can also improve the quality and resolution of existing assets, saving agencies time when they need extensive large-scale imagery and graphics for events.

When editing audio and video, AI can eliminate background noise and reverb to produce clearer, more polished recordings. For instance, AI can remove wind interference or muffled sounds captured by a phone, making even an amateur recording sound professional.

Improving Accuracy

Generative AI can help designers compile custom storyboards to guide clients toward a specific vision. Instead of investing hours sourcing the perfect footage or settling for generic, unauthentic clips, designers can leverage AI to build precise visual narratives that reflect their creative intention to clients. It can also serve as a base for a custom video shoot, ensuring the team captures all the shots needed.

A collage of monochrome images showing a scientist in various scenarios: analyzing equations, walking in a corridor, using lab equipment, working with computers and machinery, and viewing a landscape.

We often leverage AI to swiftly create storyboards when timelines are tight. This AI-generated storyboard helped our team strategically plan and define key shots before heading out for the shoot, ensuring the project stayed on schedule.

AI also brings a new level of precision to video production with its ability to correct color temperature, remove unwanted objects, and analyze footage to identify areas in need of refinement.

Limitations of Generative AI

While Generative AI is widely used across creative processes, there are still limitations in the tool’s application and ethical uses.

Misinterpretations

The tool tends to take prompts too literally. For example, if you ask AI to generate a pie chart, you may get a literal pie within a chart.

A pie chart on a blue background shows a large red slice, with small white equations on it, symbolizing data. Below, text reads, "of advocacy campaigns will use AI content tools by 2024*".

When we asked AI to create a pie chart, it generated a literal pie.

Two banners featuring text and graphics. The left shows a statue and reads, "AI's result: While interesting and compelling, it's not a helpful result." The right states, "73% of advocacy professionals believe that AI will improve stakeholder engagement.

We pivoted and asked AI to generate an abstract interpretation of advocacy with the statue of Lady Justice. This yielded more success imagery.

Inaccuracies

Generative AI cannot accurately incorporate hex codes, making it difficult to produce brand-specific images. Additionally, when generating cultural imagery, the results often perpetuate stereotypes and incorrect assumptions.

Ethical Concerns

Generative AI is trained on a vast collection of artwork and original content sourced from the internet. The rapid advancement of this technology has far outpaced laws and regulations, leaving a legal and ethical gap around its use

Create With Care; Innovate Responsibly; Design Ethically

While regulations on AI have yet to catch up with its advancements, we as creators can be mindful of how we utilize the technology. Instead of entering a prompt that directly references an artist’s style, we can use a prompt to emulate specific elements of that style.

For instance, instead of saying “Create a Banksy-style poster of advocacy in DC”, we can say “Create an acrylic-style painting of a group of policymakers on Capital Hill”.

A group of people in business attire walk confidently under a vibrant sky, with the U.S. Capitol building in the background, as if brought to life by generative AI. The scene is painted in a bold, colorful style, emphasizing movement and purpose.

A painting of a crowd in formal attire walking toward a large white-domed building with columns, resembling the U.S. Capitol, unfolds like a scene conjured by generative AI on a sunny day with blue skies and green lawns.

A group of people in suits walk toward the illuminated U.S. Capitol building at dusk, surrounded by dynamic brushstrokes and vivid colors that create a dramatic, artistic effect, as if crafted by Generative AI.

We asked AI to create an acrylic-style painting of a group of policymakers on Capital Hill.

As creators, we bear the responsibility of using technology thoughtfully and intentionally. As we increasingly integrate AI into our workflow to streamline processes and maximize efficiency, we must set responsible standards to ensure its ethical and effective use.