Last year during my minor Marketing Sustainable Innovations we worked on marketing plans for local energy cooperatives around Amsterdam. The final assignment was to create a short online video to present our findings and ideas. My group decided to do everything ourselves. We each recorded a part of the voice-over, animated our slides and spent hours syncing both to give the video a personal touch.
When presentation day arrived the whole class gathered to watch the results. I was excited to see what other groups had found during their research at different energy cooperatives. But after a few minutes I noticed something strange. At least four groups had submitted almost the same video. They had all used the same AI generator which produced identical intros, the same background visuals and even a similar narration style. The videos looked slick and professional, but they were hard to tell apart.
That afternoon was my first real experience with generative AI. Not only didn’t I really realize that using AI to generate a video was even an option, I was also impressed by how quickly AI can create something that looked so polished. At the same time I was a little bit disappointed. The creativeness that could have made each project unique, was missing. Instead of presenting different findings and creative styles, many videos turned into this similar AI version.
This taught me a very important lesson. Namely, AI technologies can be a great help, however relying on it too much makes everything look the same and takes away the personal touch. Creativity is not just about getting things done quickly or making something look professional, it is also about telling the story in your own way. These tools can definitely save time and help you get started, but the real uniqueness comes when you add your own ideas and perspective. By finding that balance, we can use technology to support our creativity instead of replacing it.
