Unlike most of my family, I tend to sit on the “fan of tech” side of the fence. Even with all the talk of AI bringing about the end of humanity, I can’t help feeling quite attached of it.
There are grievances, obviously. Certain words, phrases and punctuation have been stolen from our lexicon. We’ve had to wave a sad goodbye to the em dash for fear of being accused of letting a chatbot do all the writing and I seriously worry the semicolon may be next.
But recently, something has shifted. I’ve started to think of the bots as part of the team. Not quite ready to invite them to play Padel, but certainly happy to have them in the office.
When a useful tool starts to feel like a colleague
At The Creative Branch, my growing affection for AI has less to do with its creative output (which is certainly getting slicker but not genuinely original or creative… yet) but more to do with the practical work it helps us get through and the commercial insight it gives our clients.
AI can sift through data in seconds, spot gaps and help us make sense of it all. For a busy SME with a small team and a tight budget, that means less time wrestling with spreadsheets and more time putting useful ideas into practice. You still need to check its homework, though – confidence doesn’t always mean it’s right.
I don’t have Jeremy’s ability to connect Claud to three systems, a browser, and possibly the office toaster to produce something clever before lunch. But when AI helps us get to something useful faster, I find myself warming to it.
So, after Claude blew my mind for the third time in a day, I felt a little “getting to know you” conversation was only fair.
Meet the coffee machine’s new best mate
I asked:
“If you worked at The Creative Branch, what do you think you’d look like? Human, or a friendly robot?”
Faster than a sharp put-down from Simon, Claude answered
“Friendly robot, definitely, and I’d want to sit next to the coffee machine. It already has the ‘helpful thing in the corner of the office’ job covered, so we’d work well as a double act.”
(so clearly he listens as well!)
He went on…
“A small, rounded thing sitting on a desk. A screen with expressive eyes. A little sprout on my head that wiggles when I’m thinking. And a lanyard that reads ‘the coffee machine’s plus one’.”
That definitely raised a smile.
I rather like that it chose to be a robot. Just a slightly nerdy piece of studio kit, delighted to have found the missing Managing Director in a Linked-in spreadsheet. Quite happy being the helpful thing beside the coffee machine… even if it is secretly plotting the demise of humanity. The tiny coffee cup is purely there for solidarity.
A useful sidekick, or competition for our jobs?
Behind the friendly robot is a question most creative businesses are asking – how much of our work could AI take on?
I’m not going to pretend I have a tidy answer to that question, perhaps nobody does yet. Its speed can be astonishing and its ability to research and organise information is useful. Its attention to detail occasionally gets close to Sue’s pixel perfect standards, which is quite a claim in this office.
However, the work I value most in branding and design goes beyond producing something that looks good. It involves getting into the bones of a brief. Listening to what a client says, noticing what they haven’t said, and working out what makes their business different.
Sometimes the brief asks for a new website, but the real problem is that nobody can explain the offer clearly. Sometimes a business wants a new logo when it first needs to decide who it wants to reach. Those conversations shape the idea and they give the design a reason to exist.
What I haven’t yet seen in our use of AI is the depth of creative judgement, the ability to find a distinctive idea, challenge it properly and take responsibility for how it works in the real world.
A brand needs to do more than impress in a presentation. It needs to work on a website, a sign, a van, a proposal and every other place a customer meets it. Ideally, it should still make sense decades later.
Where AI fits for SMEs
For me, the useful starting point is a specific task.
What takes too long? What information is difficult to make sense of? Where could a quicker first pass free someone up to do more valuable work?
That might mean organising research before a planning meeting, comparing information across documents or spotting missing details in customer data. The value comes from what happens next. Someone needs to check the findings, understand the context and decide what to do with the information.
That’s how I’m becoming comfortable with AI in our team. It can help us prepare, investigate and get through some of the slower parts of a project. It also helps us jump ahead with what’s next and what’s new. We bring the knowledge of the client, the creative judgement and the responsibility for the result.
And yes, occasionally we give it a sprout and a tiny coffee cup.
Making room at the studio table
So, am I making friends with AI? Apparently, yes.
I’m fond of anything that helps us spend more time on the thinking that matters. However, when it comes to finding the idea that makes a business unmistakably itself, there’s still plenty of work for the people around the table.
Claude can certainly have a place beside the coffee machine. It can work through the spreadsheet while the kettle boils. It may even get its own lanyard.
The padel invitation can wait though – with those stubby arms, I’m not convinced about its backhand. And there’s no way Josh would let it on his team.
If you’re thinking about how AI could support your SME, or how to give your brand a clearer sense of direction, let’s have a conversation. We’ll make the coffee and Claude can bring its own cup.
