Envisioning the Bigger Picture w/ Generative-AI
Generative AI is a fact now. Over the past year, it’s transitioned from an interesting emerging technology, to a competitive advantage for a few, to something that’s going to fundamentally disrupt an unknown range of industries. Then more recently, it’s taken an even more significant turn, to become something that ordinary companies, with no previous interest in AI, are investing in AI based integrations into their workflow.
That’s when technologies start to truly transform business: when they stop being “exciting” and start being foundational.
Yet those same companies still struggle to explain exactly how it will transform them. There are plenty of use cases that showcase GenAI’s vast potential, from managing supply chains and reading contracts to speeding up video and audio production. But these are pinpoint-specific, many are yet to be tested, and mostly too new to prove long-term benefit. At the same time, news feeds are full of examples of GenAI backfiring, like the lawyer who used ChatGPT to write court motions, unaware that it was filling them with made-up (but convincing-sounding) case law. If nothing else, the gold rush for AI is laden with more excitement then education.
When I joined Publicis Sapient, it was quickly a mandate to explore how AI was going to potentially accelerate or disrupt our ways of working in Design and Experience. With all the potential in ideas, we’ve started to deal with all this ambiguity by focusing on one compelling use case that grew out of a specific need for our region — The Middle East — and our clients here.
Many countries in the Middle East, including the UAE, Oman, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia, have spent the last decade radically shifting the way they think about their national identity and vision to level them up on the world stage. They see the countries as a product, and alongside that, demand a vision with aspirations directly out of the wild dreams of Silicon Valley. This often translates into bold plans for the future of education, health, transport, infrastructure, energy, and more — plans that need equally bold visualization in order to gain traction.
This is where Generative AI has a unique and powerful role to play, where there was nothing like it before.
In the past — and in some places, even today — the typical way of outlining a national future was through bullet points in a speech or slide deck. This may have been sufficient in the past, but today, as countries seek to galvanize entire populations’ commitment to a shared, richer future, bullet points won’t cut it.
Working in the US and EU, you can often get away with simple storyboards of stock photos to convey concepts. In these regions, with regulation and budgets, incremental steps are often the norm. But here, people are dreamers and expect to see something that evokes a sense of scale, amazement and awe — something on par with what moviegoers in 1977 experienced watching Star Wars for the first time. The scale and the groundbreaking vision unlike anything before it.
This is an especially tall order given the scale and ambition of many of these plans. Clients we’re working with envision entire planned cities, global tourism destinations, and ubiquitous technology that comes straight out of Minority Report, Ready Player One, and Dune (minus the dystopian elements). They see seamless use and control of transport, identity, and payment across towns and borders. Education that rivals the best in the world. Exclusive communities and tourism sports engaging in mental and physical health for a global audience. And personalized experiences and trips across dreamscapes yet to be built.
By leveraging tools like technology like ChatGPT, MidJourney, and Runway, teams at Publicis Sapient can explore opportunities with our clients in ways that were impossible even a year ago. Within weeks, we can partner with them to showcase how their dreams might become a reality, and accelerated methods for how those dreams can be developed and delivered. We’ve already done this with a variety of clients to help tell their stories in more persuasive and compelling ways, both publicly and within their organizations.
Creating these kinds of rich visuals allows us to have better discussions, which helps clients to navigate their way to success.
What previously took artists weeks to render now takes hours with more iterations than was ever before possible allowing for our clients and our teams to have greater alignment on what we will need to deliver.
Going from dream to vision to plan to reality this rapidly isn’t just faster, it’s also more collaborative. Clients can provide feedback on what we share, then iterate together, from a macro-vision of new cities and modes of transportation, down to the micro details: getting a coffee, receiving a calendar update or message from your friends, riding an autonomous vehicle through a landscape of historic sites mixed with modern buildings. Through images, videos, and audio, these visions are displayed almost like movie trailers, giving everyone a clearer picture of what is aspired to be achieved.
The net result is a gradual shift in perspective on a massive scale. I’ve seen personally how this kind of GenAI-powered approach can align entire populations towards a common vision that creates better lives and futures for all citizens. It’s truly remarkable, and humbling.
There is no doubt Generative AI will change many things about Digital Design — assisting in Research, synthesizing data, becoming a companion knowledge expert on users, generating UI iterations and writing UX/UI copy.
Of course, this is just a single use case. But for us, in our context, working with our clients in our region, it’s absolutely enormous. It gives us something we never had before, and is a powerful tool to ensure we are delivering the best outcomes in transforming businesses.
In the long term this is what will make Generative AI truly transformational: not its ability to do everything well, but to do the one thing that matters to you well. That’s when it becomes “normal,” and it couldn’t be more exciting.
AI won’t replace designers, but designers who can leverage AI in the right ways, will replace those who can not.
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