If you read my newsletter from last week, you’ll know that I said Canva had scored a huge technical knock out over Adobe with it’s acquisition of the Affinity design suite. However, Adobe roared back the next day with a ‘Sneak peek’ demo in Las Vegas of some of their potential AI tools. Not everything in a sneak event becomes a full fledged product, but Adobe has shown a clear indicator that they mean business. If you work in Marketing and want a deep dive, check out this blog post complete with demo videos.
If you’d like some objective reviews, check out ZDNET and Fast Company
Project Infograph It simplifies the creation process, leveraging Adobe Firefly generative AI to create and recommend design elements based on key messages, data and the overall aesthetic the user hopes to convey. Users can simply import a dataset, enter a short text description of the top messages, and instantly experiment with different color palettes, chart types, graphics and animations.
Customers expect personalized experiences in every interaction they have with a brand. They want to feel valued and not an anonymous face in the crowd. This is why brands must ensure each experience is personalized, to meet changing customer expectations and build loyalty. Project Get Personal empowers marketers — of any skill level — to generate multiple variations of personalized images instantly and seamlessly deliver them at scale.
While these are really amazing technical accomplishments, they are also a potential damaging blow to entry level or production designers. *Caveat: If these tools come to market. Adobe will have simultaneously made their tools more accessible and created more opportunities for non-designers, just as CANVA has been doing, and will be drastically reducing the need for traditional designers. For those of you keeping score, in the space of a week Canva has taken a bold move towards Adobe’s Pro tool market share and Adobe has taken a swipe at Canva’s AI tool market share.
The State of the Art in AI Generated Video
I’m living in this limbo of wanting to be an AI filmmaker, while accepting that Sora isn’t here yet and Runway and Pika Labs are to expensive to be useful. If you’re feeling stuck sitting on the sidelines as well, you might like to look at this snapshot of the current state of AI video. If you’re ready to take the plunge and start plunking down a monthly fee to generate videos, you should read this comparison between RunwayML and Pika. To be honest, I paid for both for a few months, and then got burnt out. And if you’d like to read a longer technical explanation, the MIT Technology review has you you covered. And, if you’d like to see what the future holds, check out this review of LTX studio. It’s a complete browser based editing suite that allows you to generate scripts, storyboards, video and audio. Personally, I wasn’t impressed with the quality, but it’s early still and I do think it represents the paradigm of how we will use these tools in the near future.
Check Out My AI Toolkit Recommendations
I wrote a post over on Medium with advice on how to get started as an AI creative.
OpenAI Releases Breakthrough Voice Cloning
The technology is very similar to what’s happening at Eleven Labs and HeyGen, but it only needs a 15 second sample and then the selected voice can be generated in multiple languages. This has really exciting potential for things like audiobooks and education. I could type up some lecture notes and then create a recording, in my voice, in the selected language for my non-native students. However, the potential for deepfakes is terrifying. Check it out
Nevermind: They’ve postponed it due to potential deepfake, security risks.
What if AI is All a Huge Scam?
If you’re closer to the business end of things and believe the AI hype train has left the station prematurely, you might enjoy this essay from Emily Stewart
Amid all the unknowns that surround artificial intelligence, one thing is true: Almost everyone is a little bit lying about it at the moment.
And if you are starting to think that this is just another shell game meant to lure investors and drive share prices higher, you should read this essay from Victor Tangermann
"Capital continues to pour into the AI sector with very little attention being paid to company fundamentals," he wrote, "in a sure sign that when the music stops there will not be many chairs available."
And if you’re already convinced it’s a giant scam and want a preview of how bad things are going to get, check out this post from Gary Marcus (spoiler alert: Microsoft wants to invest 100 billion in OpenAI).
When I first started writing this newsletter, I thought Gary Marcus way too cynical, a naysayer. Now I read his articles every week and realize he has a lot to say (When Will the GenAI Bubble Burst?)
Eye Candy Alert: MS AI For ALL
If you work in design or marketing, it’s highly likely that you will need to build some promotional materials for an AI product soon. When you’re capturing screen shots for that presentation or mood board, you should probably include Microsoft’s AI for All.
That’s all for today! Thanks for reading and supporting my work. If you ever have any questions or would like me to explore a subject, send me a message!