Scaling Ad Creative with AI: When to Embrace It and When to Hold Back

Another example comes from our work with ZQuiet, where we used AI to generate product plinths to showcase their anti-snoring mouthpiece. The goal was to elevate the product’s presentation without compromising accuracy or brand standards. At the current stage of AI development, the mouthpiece’s complex structure proved challenging for AI to maintain perfect fidelity when generating new perspectives, so our team refined the outputs, adjusting angles, lighting, and shadows to ensure a realistic final composition. This project demonstrates how AI can accelerate asset creation but still requires human precision to meet brand and quality standards.

Beyond visuals, AI voice tools have revolutionised how we handle audio content. Instead of expensive studio re-recordings for minor script changes, we can now adjust voiceovers with remarkable accuracy. Need to change “15% off” to “20% off” in an existing voiceover? AI can seamlessly edit the audio whilst maintaining the original speaker’s tone, pace, and vocal characteristics. This is particularly valuable for seasonal campaigns, price updates, or A/B testing different offers without the cost and scheduling challenges of bringing talent back to the studio.

This component-focused approach has transformed our workflows across all media types. We can now manipulate visual assets to better suit different aspect ratios, generate B-roll footage that perfectly complements brand messaging, adapt audio content for different markets or offers, and create seasonal variations without compromising on quality or authenticity.

Testing, Iteration and Optimisation

AI’s true superpower isn’t pure creativity, it’s the ability to bring ideas to life in multiple ways, fast. From a single concept, we can generate numerous executions, format variations, and stylistic approaches in the time it once took to produce one, enabling robust A/B testing that drives measurable improvements in CTR, ROAS, and CPA.

A great example came with Glastonbury: recognising the festival as the perfect opportunity to connect the brand with its audience, we fed AI a prompt alongside the product image and a reference Glastonbury poster. This generated a MakeWaves version that our team refined with human creative expertise. The final creative performed exceptionally well, with the AI contribution being completely invisible (audiences couldn’t tell which elements were AI-generated versus traditionally created.) The speed of iteration meant we could test multiple approaches and optimise based on real performance data.

We also applied this approach for a seasonal Make Waves campaign aligned with the Premier League’s return in late summer. The concept positioned Make Waves as the “Champions League of sweat protection,” featuring the applicator front and centre on a football pitch, accompanied by sweat-related messaging. To bring the idea to life quickly, we used AI to generate a striking football pitch background that complemented the product and theme.

The brief required the creative to look as realistic as possible, not an obvious overlay, whilst including key brand elements such as the logo, Trustpilot rating, and the product with its lid off. By experimenting with AI-generated backgrounds, our team produced a polished, football-related visual that felt authentic, on-brand, and campaign-ready in a fraction of the usual time.

Cost-Effective Scaling Throughout the Process

The economics are compelling across every stage of the creative process. AI offers low-risk, low-cost opportunities to experiment, plan, and test creative concepts. Whether analysing market trends, storyboarding a major shoot, or exploring seasonal creative directions, AI provides a pathway to more creative possibilities without proportional increases in budget or timeline.

The real power emerges when creative scale combines with advanced data expertise. Whilst AI enables rapid creative iteration, sophisticated data analysis ensures testing is strategic and learning is efficient. It is not just about creating more variations but understanding which elements genuinely drive performance, identifying patterns across campaigns, and applying those insights to future work. This combination of AI-powered creative scale and data-driven optimisation creates something greater than the sum of its parts: a continuous cycle of creative evolution informed by real performance insights.

When AI Is Not the Answer

Mastering AI for creative work requires expertise in prompting, knowing how to communicate effectively with AI tools to get quality outputs. Even when this expertise is finely tuned, AI is still not always the answer. Here is where we draw our lines.

Product Fidelity Is Non-Negotiable

We never use AI to replace products at any risk or expense of accuracy. As the technology currently stands, AI can struggle with unique, complex product shapes, especially items with non-standard forms, moving parts, or distinctive features that define the brand.

Attempting to recreate specialised products such as advanced gum shields or uniquely designed items with complex geometries often falls short. Current AI tools can approximate what products look like from different angles, but accuracy remains inconsistent. Whilst rapid improvements are likely, there’s a strong argument to be made that the risk to brand trust is not worth taking today.

For brands with distinctive or premium products, maintaining complete visual accuracy is paramount. Our clients trust us to convey their offerings authentically, and we never compromise on that trust for the sake of speed.

The Authenticity Challenge

If you can easily tell something was created by AI, it is probably not serving your brand well at this moment, unless that’s the whole point. The current “AI feel”, overly smooth textures, uncanny lighting, or generic-looking people, can undermine the authenticity that drives consumer connection and trust. As AI tools evolve, these tell-tale signs will likely diminish. For now, our approach ensures AI remains invisible in the final creative, serving as a tool that enhances human creativity rather than replacing it.

To illustrate how the technology currently stands, we recently tested a leading AI platform that promises a fully automated ad creation process from strategy to execution using nothing more than a product link. The idea is compelling: upload your product and let AI handle everything from messaging and layout to visual design and call-to-action. However, despite the sophistication of these emerging tools, the results still fell short in practice:

• Packaging changed on every ad, creating inconsistency
• Colours and fonts did not match brand guidelines
• Logos were pixelated, altered, or low quality
• Some outputs even made the product look like it was for pets rather than people
• Spelling mistakes appeared throughout the copy
• Overall, the graphics looked generic and unpolished

Despite the platform’s claims of seamless brand integration and clear messaging, the reality was different at the time of testing. Given the extraordinary pace of AI development, we expect many of these limitations to be resolved as the technology continues to evolve. However, this current state highlights why a human-led, component-based approach remains essential today. AI can accelerate and enhance creative work, but it currently delivers the best results when guided by human oversight, brand expertise, and a focus on authenticity.

When Human Stories Matter Most

Some campaigns require genuine human experience and emotion. Customer testimonials, real-life scenarios, and authentic moments of connection cannot be replicated by AI without sacrificing the very authenticity that makes them powerful.

Our Strategic Framework: Making AI Work for Your Brand

1. Human Oversight Throughout

We maintain human decision-making at every stage of the creative process. AI provides options and possibilities; humans make the strategic choices about brand alignment, emotional resonance, and campaign direction.

2. Tools Serve Strategy, Not Vice Versa

We do not ask “What can AI do?” We ask “What does this campaign need to achieve?” Then we determine if and how AI can support those objectives. The strategy drives the tools, never the reverse.

3. Brand-First Integration

Every AI application must pass our brand fidelity test. Does it maintain the authentic feel of the brand? Does it align with brand guidelines and values? Does it preserve the trust our clients have built with their customers?

4. Quality Over Quantity

Whilst AI enables rapid content generation, we focus on generating better options, not just more options. Each AI-generated component must meet our quality standards before it becomes part of the creative toolkit.

The Vertical Reality: It Is About Brand Values, Not Industries

Having explored where AI adds the most value within the creative process, a natural question follows: which brands or industries benefit most from these tools?

The truth is, it is not about verticals but about brand philosophy and values. For example, some watch brands have embraced AI for surreal, artistic campaigns that showcase creativity and innovation. Others prefer traditional photography that emphasises heritage and craftsmanship. Both approaches can be successful; the key is alignment with brand identity and customer expectations.

Brands with established heritage or those in highly regulated industries often lean towards traditional creative approaches. Meanwhile, brands heavily focused on paid media as their primary channel may find AI more valuable for rapid creative iteration and testing.

Looking Forward

AI creative tools are evolving at an unprecedented rate. Limitations we observe today may be resolved within weeks or months. We are constantly evaluating new capabilities and platforms, recognising that what seems impossible now could become standard practice remarkably quickly.

As quality improves and new possibilities emerge, AI will likely become a larger part of our toolkit. The trajectory of development suggests that many current limitations around product fidelity, authenticity, and automation will be overcome. However, the core principle will remain: AI as a powerful supplement to human creativity, not as a replacement.

The brands winning with AI creative are not those using it most extensively but those using it most strategically, combining AI’s speed and scale with human insight, emotional intelligence, and brand expertise.

The Bottom Line

AI has become an invaluable tool in our creative arsenal, but it is just that: a tool. The magic happens when AI capabilities combine with human creativity, strategic thinking, data expertise, and brand knowledge to deliver both the creative diversity and volume that modern advertising demands.

For ecommerce brands looking to scale their creative output, the question is not whether to use AI, but how to use it strategically. The brands winning here are those that embrace AI’s possibilities whilst respecting its current limitations, using it to augment human creativity rather than replace it.

Ready to explore how AI can enhance your creative strategy whilst maintaining authenticity, brand fidelity, and creative diversity? Get in touch to discuss building a framework that works specifically for your brand’s needs and objectives.