The role of AI in creative content: how we’re leveraging the tech

If you're not talking about AI these days, what are you talking about? Artificial intelligence has become a central topic in nearly every industry, and digital media is no exception. This is especially the case for our in-house creative services team. From streamlining workflows to enhancing design capabilities, AI is revolutionising the creative process.

At Pixel Inspiration, we’re always looking for ways to incorporate new digital technology into everything we do. We’re pragmatists at heart (you could even say some of us are cynics after so many years working in the technology sector…) and we understand the need for balance. We don’t want to get caught up in the hype and we encourage clients to do the same. In this blog, we discuss how AI can support the digital signage creative process, while ensuring we deliver impactful content tailored to each of our clients’ needs.

AI as a tool, not a replacement

A common misconception is that AI can fully automate the design and production of creative output, including static and motion graphics, which would all but eliminate the need for skilled designers. As the technology stands in mid 2025, we find the use of various AI image generation tools can significantly improve studio efficiency, and therefore lower the cost of creative services. What it can’t yet do is replicate the expertise, intuition, and creative vision that animators, artists, motion graphics, 3D and UX/UI designers bring to the table.

Like us, your mind will likely have been blown by the quality of some AI output. What we’ve come to realise, however, is that the final asset doesn’t necessarily reflect the brief given and may have been polished by a human. And that’s kind of fundamental to commercial projects!

Previously, our creative services team received an image from a well-known high street retailer that needed motion for use in a dynamic template. The prompt specifically requested elements such as rain running down the window and steam gently rising from a coffee cup. Our first AI output failed as – although there was steam rising from the coffee and rain on the windows – it was unusable due to the erratic movements of the camera and the feet.

The iterative process of creative refinement that’s typical of client to designer interaction is very difficult to replicate using generative AI, by its nature it creates something different each time. Asking AI to slightly tweak an animation it created a few seconds ago to remove or adapt an unwanted element will often introduce another element entirely, potentially moving further away from the intended output, rather than closer. With each output there’s a cost, so we can quickly lose any anticipated commercial benefit.

After several regenerations of the rainy coffee cup creation, though the steam from the coffee and the rain in the windows was getting close to our desired outcome, we were unable to get the appearance of natural movement on the feet and resorted to using a prompt which requested no movement at all.

AI hasn’t quite mastered the art of human touch - and it’s something that everyone still looks for in content. While it can generate eye-catching visuals at lightning speed, it often lacks the emotional nuance, cultural context and intuitive understanding that human creative teams can produce that helps encourage consumers to make purchases in retail and hospitality environments.

For instance, we work with national and international brands that often require high volumes of creative assets on a weekly or monthly basis. You might assume that AI handles that for us, but our designers play a crucial role to ensure that any creative content that is produced for our clients or displayed on our digital signage solutions maintain quality, consistency and brand integrity. 

We should also always consider intellectual property rights - if AI generates your content, who owns the rights to it and what happens if the end user license agreement of the AI software changes? Monitoring those long legal texts that we all tend to simply accept when using websites or other software can have significant impacts in commercial projects. What  if the offshore company that’s generating your content suddenly introduces a license to use that content on things such as digital signs or social platforms? We always think of the legal saga relating to the GIF image format many years ago, which stemmed from a similar circumstance.

Where AI makes a positive impact in commercial projects

We use AI to enhance our creative services in a variety of ways:

• Upscaling and enhancing images: AI-powered software helps us improve the resolution of low-quality images, often the source assets that we’re supplied with,  making them usable for high-end design work and ensuring they pop on digital assets like large format displays. It recognises elements like text, hair, or facial features and can scale them up intelligently to save time when client-provided assets need a little TLC.

• Animation and motion graphics: using AI-generated scripts in After Effects, the software we tend to use to create animated visuals, we can generate natural-looking animations, 3D models and motion tracking to help bring complex content ideas to life. The time savings that these tools provide are considerable and mean the average cost of a piece of high quality content is significantly lower than it would have been only a few years ago.  

We began with a photograph of a meadow blanketed in yellow flowers. Using AI, we brought the image to life by adding motion; rolling clouds, gently swaying flowers, and a time-lapse effect capturing the scene over a 12 hour period.

• Adaptation of POS to animated in-store retail media: many of our clients capitalise on their foot traffic in retail environments by implementing in-store retail media. In many cases, the content running on this inventory tends to be based on campaign assets from other channels, typically print-based Point of Sale. In these cases, we often use AI to animate a particular asset (perhaps the background or product shot) to bring the content to life, keeping that asset separated from the other elements in its own layer, to allow for further human refinement of the overall output. 

  
  

  For example, when a client required motion to enhance the visual impact of a static print POS asset, we used AI to animate elements of the image. The result included the changing shape of a glass – initially not part of the prompt, but emerged organically form the AI output. The effect worked well, and after adding manual animation of copy and other visual effects in After Effects, it helped complete the scene.

The limitations of AI in design

Despite the benefits, AI can only be pushed so far. For example, it might help make editing content quicker, but human designers are still necessary to ensure that brand guidelines are met. If an AI-generated asset misrepresents a brand’s identity, this is a pretty big deal in our world. 

With AI, anyone can create visuals, but how do we separate this from the high-quality, industry standard creative content that customers see when out shopping or eating at a restaurant? Without the experience of a creative team, the risk of poor-quality output increases. Professional designers can act as gatekeepers, ensuring that creative work meets the highest standards.

The future of AI in creative content

AI’s impact on the creative industries will only grow as it becomes more sophisticated. We expect AI to become an even more integral part of our workflow, continuing to assist with scaling, personalisation and automation. 

As AI’s capabilities evolve, we’ll continue to learn new ways to harness its power. Rather than replacing creative teams, it will shift their roles toward higher-level creative direction, quality control, and brand stewardship.

At Pixel, we don’t just embrace AI, we are integrating it into our creative toolkit to enhance the work we produce for our clients. The future of creative content shouldn’t be AI versus humans, it should be a joint effort to push the boundaries of design, knowing when and how to use it effectively.