Who wins?

These last few weeks, I've been reporting on how different agencies are employing a slew of third-party AI tools in their work.

As well as asking people about the positive use cases they've found, I've been asking about the problems. The common issue raised has been trust.

Given the number of IP and copyright lawsuits currently levied against AI developers, and the lack of fidelity in results, pretty much every person I've spoken to has caveated any success they've found using gen AI in their work with the fact they don't trust it enough to deploy in a commercial context.

Firefly, the gen AI tool developed by Adobe, is probably the first tool I've come across which lacks this issue, due to the fact draws from licensed Adobe stock imagery.

I spoke to Ogilvy's Kaare Wesnaes about the features it's found useful, such as generative fill. But the biggest point is trust.

“The legality of these tools is so important,” says Wesnaes. And with Firefly, he says “we’re completely indemnified and we can use it in our creative processes however we want to.”

Anyway, my side thought from this is that, if Firefly ends up in pole position in the AI arms race, a revolutionary technology surrounded by hopes, fears and hype might just end up funnelling cash towards Adobe – a vastly wealthy corporation – rather than breaking down the corporate redoubts surrounding the professional creative world.

Something for the weekend

• Dentsu predicts gen AI search could be next big media opportunity for brands
• What do they do all day? David’s Paula Vampre on the role of a chief strategy officer
• Laura Wade went back to uni to become chief sustainability officer at Essence Mediacom [ Ellen Ormesher , The Drum]