The Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Creative Quality in Advertisement Filmmaking in Pakistan

Abstract

Generative Artificial Intelligence has initiated a fundamental reorganization of innovative and operational efficiency for media production. This research studies the recent insertion of AI-supported storyboarding tools like Midjourney into the advertising industry of Pakistan. Although industry Veterans appreciate the rapid development of AI in creating quality content, concerns remain about AI’s placement of subtleties of the unique individual and nuances of culture. Using a mixed-methods approach, this research collects data using semi-structured interviews of professional directors and storyboard artists, and conducts a comparative analysis of the AI-and-non-AI-supported workflows. The research analyzes non-AI and AI-supported workflows in terms of production turnaround, visual integrity, and creative anxiety. AI supports and accelerates the other designer’s ideation and preproduction by automating lower-order tasks, reducing creative fatigue, and allowing higher-order tasks to be performed at the designer’s peak cognitive capacity. The data also show several huge disadvantages, notably a decline in aesthetic quality and narrative originality. The data show that inadequate control of AI’s output resulted in inferior culturally grounded elements, in this specific case within the context of Pakistan. AI can further accelerate productivity. In this research, the authors argue that a combination of higher-order tasks grounded in culture and control of AI in the advertising industry of Pakistan is warranted, and propose options for balancing the human and the technological in professional advertising in advertising of Pakistan to preserve narrative integrity.