The Imagination Age Weekly AI Roundup: April 14-20, 2025
Start your week right! A curated roundup of the top AI news shaping the industry.
Welcome to this week’s edition of The Imagination Age news roundup, where we track the most important stories shaping the future of creativity, culture, and commerce through generative AI.
As digital tools continue to reshape creative industries, we're seeing new developments and debate at the intersection of art, marketing, and intellectual property. From AI-generated action figures going viral to former Google CEO Eric Schmidt's bold predictions about machines matching human artistic talent within 3-5 years, the creative landscape is evolving rapidly. Meanwhile, brands like Mars and Prudential are deploying AI "co-workers" that are changing how marketing content gets produced, sometimes with minimal human oversight.
Let’s dive into the latest this week!
But first…
📅 Mark your calendars:
Digital Hollywood’s AI Advertising Summit 2025
Dive into the future of advertising at Digital Hollywood’s AI Advertising Summit 2025, April 21–23, (virtual). The lineup is fantastic and if you can, join me, Natalie Monbiot, Andrew Klein, Kumaran Ponnambalam, and John du Pre Gauntt for a deep dive on how virtual humans and agentic AI are reshaping brand engagement, content strategy, and consumer experience on Weds April 23rd 1:00-1:50pm EST. Free registration at the link: Digital Hollywood
Artist & The Machine Summit
The AI & Creativity Summit is taking place on April 24, 2025 in Brooklyn. This one-day event dives into AI’s impact on the creative economy. Expect discussions on AI-generated art, music, and storytelling, plus networking with innovators shaping the future of creativity. I’ll be emceeing for the first part of the day. Grab your ticket at: Artist and The Machine
Ok, on to the news:
Puma AI ad experiment with Monks
⚠️ AI Hesitation: Marketers’ Biggest Concerns
Marketers face major hurdles in adopting AI, as discussed by Gabrielle Robitaille, director of policy at the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA). Despite AI's potential, concerns such as data privacy, ethical implications, and governance complexities are significant barriers. The WFA has created an AI governance community with over 700 members from 135 major brands to address these issues, emphasizing the need for clear frameworks to ensure responsible AI use while capitalizing on its growth opportunities.. (The Drum)
🧸 AI Makeover: Barbie and Action Figures Go High-Tech
The viral AI action figure trend reflects our ongoing fascination with digital self-representation, even as it raises important questions about AI's impact on creative industries. While many users find joy in seeing themselves as collectible toys, the trend has frustrated professional illustrators who oppose the use of unlicensed artwork to train AI systems. In response, several artists have posted hand-drawn versions of the trend, highlighting human creativity. As one illustrator put it: "A human doing it is so much better than a robot." (The New York Times)
🤖 Opinion: AI Can’t Exist Without Artists
Should LLMs that use your training data pay you similar to how you get royalties for oil extracted from your land? That's the point Robert Hunt makes in his opinion piece for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. He argues that while he receives checks for oil from land he partly owns, AI companies pay nothing when training on his books. Without human artists creating original work first, Hunt reminds us, AI would have nothing to learn from. (Star-Telegram)
⚖️ Who Owns AI-Created Art?
When AI can create Studio Ghibli-style images with a few text prompts, it raises serious copyright concerns. The article explains that while you can't copyright an artistic style (like when Ed Sheeran won his chord progression case), the legal landscape remains murky. Currently, AI-generated images often fall into a "copyright limbo" where users think they own what they create, companies claim limited liability, and original artists have little recourse. As lawsuits mount and governments craft new regulations, we're watching the rules of digital ownership being rewritten in real time. (Hackernoon)
🎵 AI Artists: As Talented as Humans Soon?
Eric Schmidt predicts we're just 3-5 years away from artificial general intelligence (AGI) that will be "as smart as the smartest artist". Schmidt explained that AI is already writing 10-20% of its own research code through "recursive self-improvement," a process that could soon enable everyone to have "the equivalent of the smartest human" solving problems right in their pocket. While music industry executives hope to use AI as a tool that enhances human creativity rather than replaces it, Schmidt seems less concerned about job losses, suggesting automation could actually help address declining birth rates, particularly in Asian countries. The real race, according to Schmidt, is the geopolitical AI competition between the US and China. (Music Business Worldwide)
📢 AI-Powered Marketing: Content Creation Evolved
AI is rapidly transforming marketing as companies like Prudential Financial deploy "digital co-workers" to generate personalized content for millions of customers with minimal human oversight. At Opella, creators of health products like Allegra, AI efficiency is prioritized to the point where content tweaking is discouraged because an algorithm could produce "another 100 pieces" in the same time. Meanwhile, marketing firm Monks recently tested AI's creative capabilities by producing a "fully AI-generated" video prototype for Puma using AI agents as script writers and creative directors, though after executive review, the process evolved to include significant human editing and approval steps, showing that while AI marketing autonomy is advancing, human judgment still plays a crucial role in the final product. (The Wall Street Journal)
📈 Tariff Chaos: Marketers Turn to AI for Creative Wins
With marketing budgets under pressure, Mars and other global brands are turning to AI tools like CreativeX to optimize their creative assets and reduce wasted media spend. By analyzing over 300,000 assets using LLM-powered "pre-flight" tools that flag content not meeting brand guidelines, Mars increased its creative quality compliance from under 30% to 80% in some markets, resulting in TikTok ads that drove 33% more sales than unadjusted creative. These AI optimization tools have become increasingly attractive to marketers seeking to ensure that the creative side of their campaign delivers efficiently. (Digiday)