AI's Job Isn't To Innovate; It's To Facilitate Creation

Forbes

12 hours ago

William Li, CEO of FancyTech.
Over the past year, we've heard every take on AI, from optimism and breakthrough promises to alarmism and underwhelming execution. Meanwhile, in the real world, something much more interesting—and practical—is happening: AI is no longer a side project. It's becoming part of how companies operate every day.
Shopify CEO Tobias Lütke captured this shift in a company-wide memo shared recently that jump-started a conversation about AI's role and how it's used. He told employees: "Before asking for more Headcount and resources, teams must demonstrate why they cannot get what they want done using AI." This wasn't just about managing resources; it was about changing mindsets. In line with Lütke's words, AI isn't something reserved for engineers or innovation teams. It's a tool every team should be using every day.
Nowhere is this more visible than in the world of content, where visual storytelling, speed and scale are critical. Creative and marketing teams are under more pressure than ever to iterate fast, generate personalized content and stay on brand.
Why Now
In meetings, executives often ask me, "What can AI do for us?" A better question is: "What kind of company do we want to be in five years, and are we building the right foundation now?"
The harder work is building the systems that make AI usable consistently, across teams and in a way that reflects a company's creative and commercial priorities. AI works best as a capability baked into how teams operate.
We've seen that the companies making the most progress aren't always the ones with the most sophisticated tools. They're the ones that integrate AI into their existing workflows and embed a layer in the marketing and content stack. This approach allows their teams to move faster and scale creatively without sacrificing quality.
In that sense, AI today is less like electricity and more like logistics. It determines how quickly you can go to market, how specifically you can speak to a customer and how easily you can adapt when the message or medium needs to shift.
Folding AI Into The Workflow
We've recently seen this shift firsthand in Indonesia, one of Southeast Asia's fastest-growing and most competitive digital markets. In a recent campaign for a national cereal brand, a creative agency we partner with was tasked with repositioning the brand around healthier breakfasts for children.
They needed variations of the campaign for different regions, age groups, cultural norms and morning routines. Traditionally, that level of personalization would have required tough trade-offs: either sacrifice speed or blow the budget.
Personalization at this scale used to be aspirational in a country with more than 17,000 islands and wildly diverse consumer segments. Now it's operational and more measurable than ever.
Videos were adapted to morning rituals and content variations were tested and iterated in real time—across email, social media and e-commerce platforms—before doubling down on what resonated.
What This Means For Teams
AI is not just changing content production—it's reshaping how teams think about structure, speed and scale. In the past, growing demand meant growing headcount. Now, it's about how we rethink the workflow.
When AI handles repetitive creative tasks, such as resizing, reformatting and versioning, people can focus on what AI can't do: framing the message, shaping the story and refining the voice.
It's not about replacement. It's about leverage. However, leverage only works when AI is part of the system, not a tool used by a select few or reserved for a future initiative.
For teams starting this journey, the first step isn't picking a tool—it's mapping your existing content process to identify repetitive, time-sensitive or rules-based tasks. These are your entry points for AI. From there, start small. Pilot AI on one campaign or segment with high variation needs, such as customer relationship management (CR) or performance ads. Track not just cost savings but throughput and testing velocity.
When evaluating vendors, ask how they integrate into your creative workflow. Are outputs brand-consistent? Can they support local nuance at scale? Do they offer iteration loops? Think of AI vendors less like software and more like collaborators.
In our experience, AI alone rarely satisfies all client requirements, no matter how good the models are. Even if automation covers 70% to 80% of the work, brands still need that final human touch to approve and refine outputs. We've found that the most effective approach is a hybrid one: combining high-efficiency AI with targeted human oversight. In this model, AI boosts productivity by 30% to 50% at each step and when orchestrated well, those gains compound. However, the last 20% (human-led review and refinement) ensures brand alignment and customer satisfaction.
Train not just designers but project managers and marketers to act as orchestrators, people who can manage prompts, model output and iteration cycles. The shift is less about tool proficiency and more about learning to direct AI resources like a production pipeline.
When measuring return on investment (ROI), go beyond the baseline of cost per asset. Track metrics such as content deployment speed, creative variants tested per week and performance lift from localized or time-of-day-specific content. These are the outcomes that show whether AI is helping your business scale with nuance.
Rethinking The Next Phase
The companies that will thrive in the next phase of transformation will integrate AI into their core offerings, treating AI not as a feature but as a foundation.
It reshapes how quickly brands can move, how effectively you can test and learn and how aligned your creative output is with your brand's intent.
We're seeing it already, in faster campaign cycles, leaner teams and more responsive brand storytelling.
The companies that will thrive are not necessarily the most technical. They're the ones that understand this simple idea: AI is not a department. It's a layer. And the sooner you build on it, the more prepared you'll be, whether you're operating in Jakarta, Riyadh or New York.
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