The conversation dominating creative industries often boils down to a simple question: is AI raising or lowering the creative bar? But the debate misses the point. What matters isn't the tool itself, but the quality of the thinking behind it: the user's intent, strategy, and creative ambition. And according to one leading brand strategist, the entire conversation is flawed without first answering a more fundamental question: what, exactly, is "the bar"?
Audrey Dahmen is Brand Strategy & Marketing Lead at TwentyFirstCenturyBrand, a consultancy that works with the founders and C-suite leaders of the world’s most innovative companies. Drawing on over nine years of experience building culturally-relevant strategies for brands like Starbucks, Lyft, and Zalando, Dahmen argued that the industry's focus should shift from a fear of replacement to a discipline of intention.
"Where there is a danger is the standard of creativity and the temptation to become a lazy creative," Dahmen stated. "Are you just looking at it from a profit point of view, only focused on accelerating and pushing out more work? Or are you really thinking about where to use AI to take away the annoying work so you can focus on true creativity, which I believe is still inherently human?"
For Dahmen, AI is not a competitor to be feared but a force to be harnessed. She argued that for seasoned professionals, the technology’s primary value lies in its ability to accelerate research and automate the "unsexy work" of strategy, freeing up cognitive energy for higher-order thinking. The true differentiator, she insisted, remains the uniquely human ability to connect disparate insights into a coherent point of view.
-
An expert's edge: "AI cannot compete with me," Dahmen said with confidence rooted in experience. "I test it all the time. I’ll put in a prompt, see the response, and think, 'Wrong—completely wrong.'" I'm not worried because I've honed a certain skill and point of view first and foremost." Without that human-led synthesis, she warned, brands risk drowning in a generic sea of sameness.
Humans are inherently flawed. That's what creates realness. AI outputs are based on clean criteria, not the human messiness, the human flaws, the human edge.Audrey Dahmen - Brand Strategy & Marketing Lead | TwentyFirstCenturyBrandThe "true creativity" Dahmen seeks to protect is not about polished perfection, but about embracing the very thing AI is designed to eliminate: flaws. She pointed to the raw, unscripted nature of platforms like TikTok as proof that audiences connect with imperfection and immediacy, not over-produced, brand-safe content. This creates a paradox for brands, which are often structurally engineered to erase the very "messiness" that creates authentic connection.
-
The human messiness: "Humans are inherently flawed. That's what creates realness," she explained. "AI outputs are based on clean criteria, not the human messiness, the human flaws, the human edge." This dynamic is amplified by a critical shift: consumer AI literacy is rising, narrowing the gap between creator and user. Audiences are now more willing and able to call out inauthentic, AI-generated work, raising the stakes for brands that rely on AI without a clear creative point of view.
Dahmen was quick to "cut brand managers and marketers some slack," arguing that the push toward AI is often driven by systemic economic pressures, not a lack of creative integrity. In a volatile economy, the mandate to "do more and more with less and less money" makes AI an almost irresistible tool for efficiency. This elevates the decision to use AI—and whether to disclose it—from a simple marketing tactic to a question of core corporate values, on par with decisions around CSR or DEI initiatives. "If you don't use AI, your competitor will," she acknowledged.
This complex reality is why Dahmen, a self-proclaimed "tech optimist," advocated for a more intentional path forward. She saw a profound opportunity to use AI not as a shortcut for creativity, but as a tool to deepen cultural intelligence and challenge our own biases. She described using AI to actively search for "discriminatory narratives" in a given category or to identify "minority groups we have not been considering," effectively turning the technology into a force for inclusion.
- A safe space for dumb questions: This deeper work is enabled by one of AI's most underrated psychological benefits. By removing the social friction of looking uninformed, she said, it allows for a more fundamental exploration of the "why." "It’s safe to ask AI the dumbest questions—things you’d never say in a room. My ChatGPT history is full of, ‘Explain this like I’m five.’ But that search for the ‘why’ is what leads to sharper insights and real creativity."
Ultimately, Dahmen made the case that the future of creativity will be defined less by the capabilities of AI itself than by the intent and discipline of the humans guiding it. "I'd rather inspire people to use it the right way than get stuck in a negative," she concluded. "It's here to stay, so we might as well create the best way to work with it."