AI accelerates, but humans navigate.
That was the conclusion of an industry-first debate between an Australian creative and AI.
The contest was held to discuss one of the most pressing questions facing the advertising industry: is human creativity replaceable?
More than 130 advertising, media, production and tech professionals representing 47 agencies, industry bodies, and clients, recently gathered at The Open Table event held in Melbourne, to watch Matt Lawson, co-founder and chief creative officer at agency ATime&Place take on ChatGPT.
The live discussion was moderated by Neville Doyle, strategic client partner at Ideally.
The discussion covered a range of topics that both challenged and acknowledged AI’s powerful abilities and overall potential effect on the creative industry.
ChatGPT demonstrated this live, generating answers with agility and depth in real time, with both Lawson and Doyle acknowledging its utility as a tool for speed and iteration.
But after debating ChatGPT on a number of issues, Lawson ultimately drew a critical distinction.
"AI creativity is derivative, and sure we’ve had a prolific few centuries of human art and culture for it to regurgitate,” Lawson said.
“But it is up to us to make the lateral leaps that create the wildly new. If not, we are heading towards a hellish blandscape. That’s my real fear with AI.
“Sure, it’s going to enslave us all one day, but I’m more worried about the boring stories and art it will inflict on us before that happens."
He also expanded on the intangibles that define great creative work.
"The best ideas come from life, from relationships – and from what I tell, the life of AI consists of trawling through a near infinite amount of data,” Lawson said.
“That’s no life. AI will help us communicate in new ways, at wonderfully accelerated speeds, but it’s up to us to make those ideas human and give them real meaning. It’s up to us to lead the robots, or the future is going to be really boring. How horrible.”
The panel also talked through whether creative roles could be fully replaced by AI, with even ChatGPT ultimately agreeing that it wasn’t totally possible.
It noted that if a role can be fully replaced by AI, it's likely because that role had become repetitive and process-heavy, devoid of the creative judgment that makes work meaningful.
The Open Table’s event organiser and founder of Blue Bateau Deanne Constantine said the potential effect on the next generation of creatives had been a big discussion point throughout the industry in 2025, and one the panel was keen to address during the debate.
Sarah McGregor, national executive creative director of AKQA, encapsulated what the debate had found: “Fear has always walked beside creativity - but so has opportunity. Every new technology looks scary until someone makes something beautiful with it and if we stay curious instead of scared, we win.”
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