The quiet revolution in creativity

When Al picks up the brush, who holds the vision? Inside the creative tug-of-war where machines draft fast and humans decide what matters

- Ashok Pandey [e-mail]

When Siddharth Jalan, Founder, SquidJC, calls artificial intelligence “the biggest democratizer of content creation,” he’s not exaggerating.

In a landscape where advertising once demanded large teams, long lead times, and big budgets, today’s marketers find themselves navigating a radically compressed creative cycle, powered by Al interfaces that reduce the gap between idea and execution to a few keystrokes.

The transformation isn’t just about speed; it’s about access. People once removed from creative ideation—account managers, analysts, even internsare now contributors, armed with tools that give them an instant seat at the table. Content creation has gone from a relay race to a multiplayer game. Everyone’s in. And everything's moving faster.

But this velocity has introduced new tensions. Clients expect quicker turnarounds. Campaign timelines shrink. Strategy sessions feel rushed. The assumption is that faster tools mean faster thinking. But as Jalan cautions, Al might compress time, but it should never compress judgment.

Ultimately, Al's core strength isn’t perfection. It's proliferation. It gives teams a dozen ideas in the time it used to take to draft one. It breaks creative blocks, offers alternate takes, and creates space for human refinement. In this hybrid equation, speed and scale belong to the machine. Meaning and magic still belong to people.

The illusion of automation

Even as workflows become more automated, there’s a sobering reality: Al-generated content grows stale quickly. Cadence becomes predictable. Concepts blur into cliché. And without intervention, sameness sets in.

This is where human instinct matters. Senior judgment isn’t optional. It’s essential. Al gives a base layer, a skeleton, a first draft. The creative leap, the emotional nuance, the cultural timing—those come from the human layer built on top.