AI is transforming the advertising industry - bringing excitement, innovation, and inevitable challenges. In a recent piece for The Drum, our Co-founder & Group MD, Kate Ross, shared her thoughts on the ongoing struggle to integrate AI into creative workflows.
While AI offers incredible potential for creativity and efficiency, it hasn’t been without its frustrations. Initial enthusiasm has often clashed with practical realities—particularly when tools fall short of expectations or workflows become disrupted. As Kate puts it, “The first six months were hell.” Off-the-shelf tools didn’t align with internal systems, and outputs, though exciting, weren’t always ready for client-facing use.
For many agencies, including eight&four, the journey has meant rethinking how AI fits into the creative process. “We had to break and rebuild workflows,” Kate said. That meant investing in experimentation, retooling how teams collaborate, and identifying which parts of the creative pipeline could genuinely benefit from automation. The goal wasn’t just speed - it was quality, security, and brand specificity.
The turning point often comes when AI outputs become reliable enough to meet commercial standards. For eight&four, that meant developing in-house, proprietary tools tailored to each brand’s needs. “We built custom platforms around our workflows,” Kate explained, “to generate repeatable, brand-safe assets and prove the value to clients through real outputs.”
What’s emerged is a more realistic and sustainable view of AI’s role in creative work. As Kate noted, “We’re not using AI to do things we can’t do - it’s to do the things we already do, but better.” The aim isn’t to replace human creativity, but to augment it, using AI as a tool rather than a shortcut.
Kate’s insights reflect a broader industry truth: AI’s promise lies not just in innovation, but in the ability to tailor solutions that actually work. The process of building, testing, and refining AI tools is what turns hype into measurable results.
Read the full article here.
