Creativity seems to be one of those things that machines will always struggle with, but there is much to suggest this presumption might need reassessing.

I’ve written previously about the way AI has become increasingly capable in creative tasks, whether it’s playing jazz or cracking jokes.  There have even been a couple of projects utilizing AI to help us develop smarter and more engaging video content.

There is also a Japanese company that are taking an automated approach to a good chunk of their creative marketing work.  They will mine a large database of previous creative projects to suggest possibly new creative directions for an advert.

It’s a very similar approach to that taken by the robot jazz player mentioned above, which also mined a huge back catalog of past jazz performances to suggest creative new avenues the ‘player’ could go down.

Suffice to say, both projects have the capacity to mine a huge database of past creative works, and in that sense have infinitely more capacity than human beings.  The idea is, therefore, that the robot can offer creative solutions to the problems clients face.

Automated branding

Another company has taken inspiration from this and is offering clients automated logo generation services.  The company, called Tailor Brands, offers their clients an unlimited branding package in return for a subscription to the company.

As with the examples above, they operate off of a huge library of some 13.5 million designs that have generated by their algorithms over the past few years.  These designs cover everything from business cards to logos.

Access to this service begins at $9.99 per month, which gives clients access to an unlimited amount of branding material.  The company is so confident in its approach that they’ll be rolling out additional services in merchandising and even ad design later on this year.

It’s yet another example of how even tasks that had traditionally been seen as the epitome of human are now being performed by machines.  Whether they’re being done effectively is, of course, open to dispute, but it seems a trend that will only continue.