Technically Creative by KoobrikLabs

Can AI and traditional film production actually coexist? Technically Creative is brought to you by KoobrikLabs, the IT and AI partner for creative companies. In this episode of Technically Creative, Orlando Wood sits down with Toby Walsham, founder of Imagine This and Made By Humans, to explore what happens when an experienced live-action producer builds an AI creative studio from inside the advertising and commercial production industry. Toby started his career at Framestore and built his career producing ambitious live-action work before founding Imagine This. Then generative AI arrived, and he saw an opportunity to build something new. The result was Made By Humans, an AI creative studio built around experienced production talent and a belief that artificial intelligence doesn't have to exist separately from traditional filmmaking, advertising production and creative craft. Toby talks openly about the decision to launch an AI roster at a time when parts of the creative industry were deeply skeptical of generative AI, the response from agencies and clients, and what he's learned from actually putting AI production into practice. This is a conversation about AI in advertising, generative AI, commercial production, filmmaking, creative technology and the changing production industry, grounded in the experience of someone who still loves being on a physical film set. Because Toby isn't trying to choose between AI and live action. He's building a business around both. We explore how AI is changing commercial production, where generative AI fits into existing production workflows, what clients actually want from AI studios, and why experienced producers and craftspeople still matter when the tools themselves can generate extraordinary amounts of content. Toby also reflects on the larger ecosystem he's building around Imagine This and Made By Humans, why innovation was one of the founding principles of the company, and why he ultimately decided that experimenting with AI was worth the risk. As he puts it, he would have regretted not trying. In this episode: How Toby Walsham went from live-action production to building an AI creative studio The story behind Imagine This and Made By Humans What an AI creative studio actually does Generative AI in advertising and commercial production Why Toby was initially concerned about launching an AI roster How agencies, brands and the production industry are responding to AI AI production versus traditional live-action production Why experienced producers and creative craftspeople still matter How AI can become part of existing creative and production workflows The opportunities and challenges facing AI production companies Why innovation doesn't have to mean abandoning traditional filmmaking How Imagine This and Made By Humans can grow alongside each other Why Toby believes he would have regretted not taking the risk For filmmakers, producers, advertising creatives, agencies, brands and anyone trying to understand how generative AI is actually changing creative production, this is a practical look at what happens when the people who already know how to make the work start experimenting seriously with new tools. Technically Creative is a technology podcast for people who don't necessarily think of themselves as tech people, exploring how AI and technology are changing film, television, advertising, media and the creative industries.

Weekly AI news for the creative industries. This week, Technically Creative looks at the growing fight over who gets to make advertising, how AI is disappearing into professional creative workflows, and why the rules around technology, work and authorship are changing faster than the institutions around them. The biggest story is advertising production. WPP is pushing more commercial production through its own 10,000-person production operation, challenging the traditional triple-bid system that has long connected agencies, clients and independent production companies. With traditional agency revenues under pressure, production growing, clients demanding exponentially more content and generative AI making internal production increasingly viable, this may be less about one controversial procurement policy and more about the future structure of the entire advertising industry. We also look at Omnicom, IPG and the extraordinary movement of major client accounts across the holding companies, including PepsiCo’s reported $1.7 billion shift of media, data and technology business. Then there’s Adobe, which is embedding generative video and audio directly inside Premiere rather than asking professional creatives to abandon their existing workflows. Adobe also reported record quarterly revenue, providing an interesting signal that putting AI inside the tools people already use may be a more powerful strategy than simply launching another model. Reuters and ITN are using AI to make more than 70 years of historic broadcast footage easier to find and license, showing how AI can create value from existing human work rather than replacing it. And finally, the AI safety debate gets considerably more uncomfortable. OpenAI and Anthropic are exploring investment-grade credit ratings while current and former AI researchers publicly warn about potentially catastrophic risks from frontier models. When even some of the people building the technology are calling for slower development and stronger governance, the obvious question becomes: when should government actually step in? The thread connecting all of it is that technology doesn’t just change what we can do. It changes the agreements around who does the work, who owns the opportunity, where talent goes, and what rules everybody is expected to follow. And right now, those contracts are being rewritten very quickly.

Why are we using AI? This episode of Technically Creative is brought to you by The Future of Life Insitute, an independent nonprofit working to steer transformative technologies toward benefiting humanity. https://futureoflife.org/ In this episode of Technically Creative, Orlando Wood sits down with Oonagh Murphy, Director of the Responsible AI Academy at Arts Council England, Senior Lecturer at Goldsmiths, University of London, and former Turing Fellow at the Alan Turing Institute, to explore what responsible AI actually looks like for artists, museums, cultural institutions and the creative industries. As generative AI becomes embedded across creative work, Oonagh argues that organizations need to start with a deceptively simple question: not “How can we use AI?” but “Why would we use AI?” That distinction opens up a much bigger conversation about AI ethics, copyright, intellectual property, data, trust, governance and the responsibility creative organizations have to the artists, audiences and communities they serve. Oonagh explains why responsible AI governance can actually make organizations more effective, how Arts Council England developed its approach to AI policy, and why there is no single AI policy that every creative organization should simply copy. Responsible AI requires understanding your purpose, consulting the people affected, establishing your own red lines and making deliberate choices about where AI belongs. The conversation also explores the unique role of arts and cultural institutions in the age of artificial intelligence. Museums, galleries, libraries and artists can provide spaces to slow technology down, question it, make its impact tangible and help society understand what AI means beyond the hype. We explore: • Why responsible AI starts with “why,” not “how” • AI ethics and governance for creative organizations • How Arts Council England developed its approach to artificial intelligence • Why organizations need their own AI policies and ethical red lines • Copyright, intellectual property and AI training data • Why trust and transparency matter when adopting AI • Whether artists should use generative AI • How AI is changing museums, galleries and cultural institutions • The MUNCH Museum's experiments with AI, data and its collection • Why museums may become data custodians in the AI era • AI-generated grant applications and Arts Council England's approach to assessing them • The role of human expertise in an increasingly automated world • Why responsible AI can be good project management rather than simply compliance • How artists can help society understand the impact of emerging technology • Why culture provides a space to slow down and ask better questions • The difference between purposeful AI adoption and simply using AI because everyone else is This is a conversation about moving beyond the binary debate around whether AI is good or bad and asking more useful questions about how we choose to build, govern and use these technologies. For creative companies, artists and cultural organizations, Oonagh's message is refreshingly practical: understand who you are, who you serve and what you're trying to accomplish. Then decide whether AI actually helps you get there. Because responsible AI isn't just about what the technology can do. It's about what we decide it should do. Technically Creative is a technology podcast for people who don't necessarily think of themselves as tech people, exploring how AI and technology are changing film, television, advertising, publishing, arts, media and the creative industries. This episode of Technically Creative is sponsored by the Future of Life Institute.

Hi, and welcome to the Technically Creative Week in Review, where every Monday I look back at the biggest stories in AI, technology and the creative industries from the week just gone, and try to figure out what they actually mean for the week ahead. Technically Creative is sponsored by KoobrikLabs, the AI and IT partner for creative companies. If you’re trying to figure out how AI, data and technology should actually work inside your business, visit us at KoobrikLabs.com. And this week, I’m going to do something slightly alarming. I’m going to be optimistic. Because a bunch of seemingly unrelated stories in filmmaking all seem to be pointing in the same direction. California is finally taking post-production incentives seriously. There’s suddenly bipartisan support for bringing more film and television production back to America. Tom Cruise thinks Paramount and Warner Bros. can make 30 movies a year. New production technology is making entirely different kinds of filmmaking economically possible. And AMC is getting into distribution. And all of that has me asking a question that feels almost embarrassingly simple: What if we just made more movies? Not more $250 million movies that have to make a billion dollars to survive. More $2 million movies. More strange movies. More first-time filmmakers. More scripts coming out of drawers. More stages working. More jobs. We’ve spent the last few years talking about an industry in contraction. Maybe the more interesting possibility is that technology, incentives and new ways of reaching audiences could help us build one that expands again. So, let’s get into it.

In this episode of Technically Creative, Orlando Wood sits down with Justine Armour, Chief Creative Officer of 72andSunny International, for a conversation about AI, advertising, creativity, taste, originality and the future of creative work. As generative AI makes it possible to produce more ideas, images, advertising and content than ever before, Justine argues that the most valuable creative skill may no longer be the ability to make more. It may be knowing what not to make. Her argument is fascinating: AI is already very good at producing work that is acceptable. Work that is pretty good. Work that lives in the middle. But culture has never moved forward from the middle. It moves because of outliers, divergent thinkers and people with enough conviction to pursue ideas that initially make everyone else uncomfortable. And that means taste may become more valuable in the age of AI, not less. After nearly 30 years in advertising, including leadership roles at some of the world's most celebrated creative agencies, Justine believes experience, discernment and the ability to recognize an extraordinary idea are becoming increasingly important. In a world of infinite creative possibility, the advantage belongs to people who can tell the difference between something that's merely good and something genuinely original. But this conversation goes well beyond AI. Justine talks candidly about creative leadership, agency culture, collaboration, burnout, failure and the importance of remaining human inside an industry becoming increasingly automated. We explore how 72andSunny builds a collaborative creative culture, why consensus can sometimes push advertising toward mediocrity, and why creative leaders need to create environments where unusual ideas have enough space to survive. Justine also reflects on stepping away from advertising after more than two decades of pushing herself relentlessly, what that experience taught her about creativity and leadership, and why reconnecting with instinct and creative energy changed the way she works. And for the next generation of creatives entering advertising during the AI revolution, her advice is surprisingly clear. Learn the tools. But don't let the tools define your taste. “Reject the algorithm, reject the averaging of yourself.” Because if AI can increasingly reproduce what's already familiar, originality, obsession, cultural curiosity and a genuinely individual point of view become the things that separate one creative from everyone else. In this episode: • AI and the future of advertising and creative agencies • Why generative AI makes taste and discernment more valuable • Why “the middle” may lose value as AI-generated content increases • How creative leaders identify truly original ideas • AI tools including Midjourney, Runway and Luma • Why AI-generated advertising can still fail at craft • Creativity, collaboration and consensus inside advertising agencies • The changing role of copywriters, art directors and creative departments • Why young creatives need to develop taste beyond social media algorithms • 72andSunny's approach to creative culture and collaboration • Independent agencies and the changing economics of advertising • Burnout, creative leadership and Justine's decision to step away • Why failure can make creative leaders better • What the next generation of advertising talent should learn about AI • Why originality may become the ultimate creative advantage If you're interested in artificial intelligence, advertising, generative AI, creative leadership, agency culture, branding, marketing, creative careers or the future of creativity, this is a conversation about what becomes valuable when the ability to simply make things is no longer scarce. Technically Creative is a technology podcast for people who don't necessarily think of themselves as tech people, exploring how AI and technology are changing film, television, advertising, publishing, media and the creative industries. Visit KoobrikLabs: https://koobriklabs.com Connect with Orlando Wood: https://www.linkedin.com/in/orlando-wood/ #ArtificialIntelligence #Advertising #GenerativeAI #Creativity #CreativeLeadership #72andSunny #JustineArmour #FutureOfAdvertising #AIAdvertising #TechnicallyCreative