At the Cannes Lions this year, marketing leaders debated once again how AI will change the industry. They may be asking the wrong question. The more interesting question is what happens when everyone suddenly has access to the same tools.

At Cannes Lions this year, WPP Global Chief Creative Officer Rob Reilly warned that human creativity is “under fire” as AI rapidly spreads throughout marketing, advertising and content creation.

Fair enough.

If you wandered through enough conference halls, panel discussions and beachside networking events, you could be forgiven for thinking that artificial intelligence had already become the industry’s new religion. Every agency has an AI strategy. Every consultant has an AI framework. Every platform has an AI solution. Every presentation seems to contain at least three references to AI and one image that was probably generated by AI.

The conversation usually revolves around what AI can do. Can it write? Can it design? Can it create videos? Can it build campaigns? Can it replace agencies? Can it replace marketers? Can it replace creatives?

Interesting questions. But I’m not convinced they are the most important ones.

The more interesting question is this: what happens when everyone suddenly gains access to the same tools? Because that’s what is actually happening.

Much of the current AI conversation assumes that the technology itself will become the source of competitive advantage. History suggests otherwise.

Throughout business history, technology has repeatedly lowered barriers to production. The businesses that ultimately won were rarely the ones that merely adopted the technology. They were the ones that figured out how to use it better than everyone else.

The technology mattered. The people mattered more.

AI appears likely to follow the same pattern. The question is not whether AI will make marketers better. It will. The question is whether it will make them different.

Throughout business history, technology has repeatedly lowered barriers to production. The technology mattered. The people mattered more.

We’ve Seen This Movie Before

When word processors replaced typewriters, writing became dramatically easier. Editing no longer required retyping entire pages. Productivity exploded. Most writers became better writers because they could focus more on ideas and less on mechanics.

Overnight delivery transformed business communication. Documents, contracts and proposals that once took days could suddenly move across the country overnight. Business became faster and more responsive.

The internet accelerated everything again. Information became instantly accessible. Communication became immediate. Publishing became nearly free. Businesses gained access to knowledge, markets and customers that would have been unimaginable only a generation earlier.

Then came desktop publishing, digital photography, blogging platforms, social media and content marketing. Each innovation lowered barriers. Each increased speed. Each increased volume.

In every case, the technology improved performance. The important point is that it improved performance for almost everyone.

Technology rarely creates lasting competitive advantage on its own. Once broadly adopted, it becomes table stakes.

AI may be following the same pattern. The winners may not be the people using AI. The winners may be the people who bring something to AI that everyone else lacks.

For Years We Confused Activity with Talent

Marketing has spent years rewarding production: more content, more campaigns, more channels, more reports, more dashboards, more activity. Technology often allowed average performers to appear exceptional simply by increasing output.

AI accelerates this trend to an entirely new level. Presentations that once took days can be assembled in hours. Articles that once required significant effort can be drafted in minutes. Images that once required designers can be generated almost instantly.

Productivity is exploding, which is wonderful. But also dangerous. Because output and talent are not the same thing. They never were.

The winners may not be the people using AI. The winners may be the people who bring something to AI that everyone else lacks.

AI Does Not Democratize Distinction

For a while, I found myself buying into an argument I was hearing from many AI advocates. Perhaps we humans are arrogant to believe our organic neural networks are somehow special. Why shouldn’t synthetic neural networks, supported by enormous computing power and trained on vast amounts of information, eventually outperform us creatively as well? The more I thought about it, the more reasonable the argument sounded.

Then I realized something important. AI is remarkably good at several aspects of what we commonly call creativity. It excels at recombination, mixing existing ideas in new ways. It excels at pattern completion, extending, refining and riffing on established forms. It excels at volume and speed, generating hundreds of possibilities almost instantly. It excels at style mimicry, reproducing the surface characteristics of human creative work with astonishing accuracy.

Those are not trivial capabilities. In many situations they are extraordinarily valuable.

But they are not the same thing as originality.

What appears to be missing is motivation. Human beings create because they want something. Recognition. Understanding. Revenge. Love. Money. Legacy. Connection. Curiosity. Obsession. Every great creative act begins with a human desire.

AI has no stake in what it creates. It also lacks embodiment. Much of human creativity comes from living inside a body, experiencing time, physical sensation, aging, uncertainty and the uncomfortable awareness that one day we will die. AI does not experience any of those things.

Most importantly, AI struggles with genuine novelty. It works by finding patterns, relationships and possibilities within the universe of existing human knowledge. It can create surprising combinations. It can create beautiful combinations. But it cannot easily step outside the boundaries of human-generated experience.  It may come up with a great idea you never thought about.  But that’s probably because you weren’t very imaginative in the first place.

Above average work looks remarkable to average workers.

Then there is taste. Human beings make creative choices that cost something. They risk rejection. They risk embarrassment. They risk failure. They risk looking foolish. Great creativity often requires vulnerability. But AI literally has no skin in the game.

Which leads to an observation that may sit at the center of this entire debate.

AI creativity is less like an artist and more like a mirror. It reflects, refracts and amplifies human creativity at extraordinary scale and speed. But the light source remains human.

The mirror can produce remarkable images. But it generates no light of its own.

The New Premium Is Human Imagination

The widespread adoption of AI will almost certainly make marketers better. It will make writers better. It will make designers better. It will make strategists better.

The problem is that it will make nearly everyone better at the same time. And when everybody has access to the same amplifier, amplification stops being a differentiator.

Human imagination becomes the differentiator. Judgment becomes the differentiator. Taste becomes the differentiator. Originality becomes the differentiator. The ability to connect unrelated ideas becomes the differentiator. The ability to understand people becomes the differentiator. The ability to spot opportunities before everyone else becomes the differentiator.

In other words, the qualities that have always separated extraordinary marketers from average ones may become even more important. Not less.

AI creativity is less like an artist and more like a mirror.The mirror can produce remarkable images. But it generates no light of its own.

The Gap May Actually Get Bigger

Many people assume AI will level the playing field. The opposite may occur.

As routine production becomes easier, truly talented marketers may pull further ahead. And overreliance on AI will make the untalented fall further behind. When everyone has access to the same tools, differentiation shifts to the quality of thinking behind the work.

The gap between exceptional and average may actually widen. AI may not eliminate competitive advantage. It may amplify it.

The organizations that benefit most from AI may not be the organizations with the most AI. They may be the organizations with the most interesting humans using it.

A Different Kind of Creativity Crisis

Rob Reilly may be right that creativity is under pressure. But perhaps not for the reason most people think.

AI is not threatening creativity because it can create. It is threatening creativity because it is exposing the difference between creation and originality.

The easier it becomes to produce something, the harder it becomes to produce something memorable. The easier it becomes to generate content, the harder it becomes to generate distinction. And distinction is where value lives.

The future may not belong to the marketers who create the most content. It may belong to the marketers who bring the most imagination to the machine. Because the tool keeps getting smarter. 

The challenge is making sure the humans do too.