AI makes high quality ad production fast and cheap, erasing the advantage of big budgets and flooding feeds with polished but emotionally empty content.
Olumide Gbenro, Founder of Creatoor AI, explains that production is now infrastructure and that creative technologists must pair narrative instinct with AI fluency.
Brands win by focusing on emotionally specific storytelling, rapid prototyping, and building long term IP instead of relying on production scale.
For a growing number of advertising leaders, the longtime competitive advantages of expensive photoshoots and elaborate production are fading. As hyper-realistic AI visuals and near-finished ad prototypes become common, the industry's power shifts from production muscle to creative vision. With major tech giants working to fully automate their advertising ecosystems, the key differentiator becomes who can tell the most compelling story, not who can spend the most.
We spoke with Olumide Gbenro, a creative technologist and Founder of the social video creation tool Creatoor AI. With nearly a decade of experience developing marketing and creative strategies for global brands and high-profile individuals, Gbenro now specializes in creating AI-generated films and micro-dramas. As an AI consultant with a following of over 200,000, he works directly with brands navigating this shift. His message is that the industry must fundamentally rethink where value is created.
"Why would you spend money on a real photoshoot anymore? It doesn’t make sense. The visuals are there. What matters now is the story you’re telling with them,” says Gbenro. For him, hyper-real AI visuals and near-finished prototypes have turned production from a competitive advantage into a commodity.
Cinematic in seconds: The change upends the old agency workflow. The cumbersome process of creating pitch decks and storyboards gives way to near-cinematic prototypes with astonishing speed. “Instead of storyboarding, you can get the actual ad made, at least a rough draft,” Gbenro says. That speed enables the delivery of a highly tailored vision from the first interaction. He says this approach is especially effective with successful local businesses, such as law firms or med spas, that have capital but often lack a clear creative path.
The slop problem: But the newfound ease of production has created its own challenge: an oversaturation of generic, soulless content. As the barrier to entry collapses, brands risk getting lost in a flood of AI slop. While AI adoption is widespread, quality is uneven. "People are savvy already. They can already say 'that's slop, next'. Versus a first three-second emotional hook that actually means something in the story. That's what's going to matter moving forward." In a feed saturated with technically competent visuals, attention now hinges on emotional specificity. That shift forces creatives to compete on insight rather than output.
Gbenro dismisses criticism of an AI "uncanny valley," as obsolete. He gives the example of generating a digital twin of a client, casting them as a superhero in a movie-style ad that ends with a call to action for their real-life law office. Creating a digital twin, he says, makes for a more compelling pitch.
Ideation ideal: “The reality is, on the photo side, you already cannot tell the difference, so why would you hire somebody who shows up to the office for six days and charges you $18,000?” Gbenro says. “I don’t use AI to come up with the initial concept. I start by asking what would create an emotionally engaging hook, and then I use the tools to build it out, because the core idea always comes from me.” As production costs collapse and execution becomes automated, he frames ideation as the true moat, rewarding creatives who pair narrative instinct with the technical fluency to bring it to life.
Gbenro points to a new kind of role: the "Creative Technologist." A Creative Technologist, he explains, is an orchestrator who pairs narrative vision with the technical fluency to execute it using the latest tools, staying on top of generative AI trends and mastering advanced creative technology platforms. A strong idea, he says, means little without the ability to execute it.
According to Gbenro, this new reality favors a culture of constant learning, reshaping the traditional agency model built on siloed specialists. “You can’t afford to be the person who only handles the color grade anymore,” Gbenro says, arguing that creatives must pair narrative instinct with tool mastery. He sees a particular challenge for larger, more established agencies that are slower to adapt, especially as the advertising world grapples with AI integration and large, slow-moving agencies face new pressures.
For brands that adapt, the opportunity extends beyond efficiency. It’s a vision that transforms brands from simple advertisers into studios that build audiences and own valuable intellectual property. While major brands have already used AI to slash production costs, Gbenro describes the move as the first step toward a future where brands become content creators themselves. If storytelling becomes the primary competitive advantage, brands invest in narrative continuity rather than one-off campaigns. "You're not just advertising; you're building a fan base and creating sellable IP."
