For Real: Is Non-AI Craft the New Flex?
Above: still from Apple's 'A Critter Carol'
In an age when anyone can generate the most outlandish videos, eye-popping visuals don't necessarily have the appeal of exclusivity they once had. Instead, as analogue craft remains only in the hands of those who have developed mastery, do they then become the markers of prestige, quality, and luxury? This piece wants to speak to production and craft insiders as well as strategists about this trend.
In a landscape where generative tools can create spectacle in seconds, visual excess has lost much of its power. In some cases, it now even inspires suspicion. When a few prompts can conjure up fantasy lands in seconds, where’s the value or wonder in that?
While the broader discussions around AI risk are ongoing, it’s the short-cutting nature of the technology that worries everyone today as it enables speed and volume at the cost of intention, rigour, learning, and craft.
As some parts of the industry zig to embrace AI wholeheartedly, other parts will inevitably zag to the craft side. Analogue processes, in-camera effects, physical builds and skills earned and honed will once again be elevated to markers of prestige. They’ve always signalled intention, taste and human judgement but it’s possible that their value will be reinscribed anew in the face of automation and regurgitation of what’s come before. The new luxury might just be humans’ literal and figurative fingerprints across work.
For production and craft insiders, it’s not about rejecting the new tools or taking a stance against their use. It’s about what happens when ‘anything is possible’ is the baseline with craft and humanity playing differentiator.
LBB's Zhenya Tsenzharyk asked strategists, and production and craft insiders their thoughts on the subject and they didn’t hold back. Below are responses from Tim McCracken, SVP, creative and AI, BarkleyOKRP; Matt Nelson, MD, Storefront Music; Armin Korsos, director and founder, Caymanite and DCS; Freddie Powell, founder and director, DROOL Productions; Danielle Kappy, CEO and EP at Frank Content; Doug Stivers, head of production and EP, Cutwater; Natalie Price, production director, DEPT® UK; Nicholas Kleczewski, director, Chromista; Jordi Bares, founder and ECD, rohtau; Rita Šteimane
CEO and co-owner at Panic; Matthieu Chiama, creative lead and partner, Biborg; Alec Mezzetti, design director, Mother Design; Sam Sloman, head of design, Born Social; Keith Cartwright, founder and CCO, Cartwright; Ariel Abramovici, CCO, GUT Los Angeles; Michael Bucchino, director of film craft, CYLNDR Studios; Stephen Niedzwiecki, creative co-founder, Yard NYC; Mike Groenewald, EVP, ECD, Chemistry; and Sye Allen, director, Kode UK.
Ariel Abramovici
CCO at GUT Los Angeles
At one point, it felt like brands were racing to be the first to release communication fully made with AI, often without a clear purpose behind it.
That race went so far that one of our DoorDash campaigns became a (mostly) unintentional response to it. The BagMobile was the exact opposite and completely real: a 15-foot-tall DoorDash bag physically what people need, when they need it, across America. We celebrated the DNA of each community we stopped in and delivered exactly what they needed in each location. In LA, we “stole” the iconic Randy’s donut before revealing that DoorDash was serving up free breakfast for Angelinos. In Miami Beach, we handed out 1,000 sunscreens. And at Smorgasburg, we gave out Tums.
And even after all that, some industry colleagues still asked if the campaign had been made entirely with AI. It wasn’t. Zero AI.
The campaign proved that even in an AI-driven world, people still value craft, effort, and real interactions with brands.
Alec Mezzetti
Design director at Mother Design
There’s certainly an arms race in analogue aesthetics, with AI becoming better at replicating things like film grain, VHS flicker and hand-rendered illustration. As these surface cues become easier to simulate, image-makers are pushed into ever more rarefied forms of craft to retain the desirable aura of human creativity. But beyond production processes, it’s human thinking that truly differentiates itself from the slop. AI struggles with branding for the same reason it struggles with humour: both rely on a careful balance of the expected and the unexpected – enough friction to make you look twice.
A system based on statistical probability will inevitably err towards the expected, or else collapse into pure surrealism. Design practices built solely on ruthless optimisation and digital logic are likely to be outcompeted by bots, while those that lean into distinctly human qualities – surprise, subversion and imperfection – will thrive.
Craft becomes a signal of prestige not only through execution, but through the human creativity and taste embedded within it. We saw this manifest in our recent work for soda brand Fhirst, where success relied on a cultural literacy, humour and irreverence that can only come from the experience of living in the world.
Tim McCracken,
SVP, creative and AI at BarkleyOKRP
Creativity and craft have always been a labour of love, and that push is what, in many ways, gives the work its value in the world. Now that AI can produce limitless content in seconds, the real danger is how easily it encourages shortcut thinking that hollows out creativity. The issue is not the technology itself but the instinct to cut corners and accept work that carries no trace of human rigour or soul.
AI is only a tool. It can support craft, but it cannot replace the discipline, intention, and emotional investment that shape great production. The rise of AI slop feels less like a technological crisis and more like a backlash to the erosion of care and effort in the creative process. As a result, it’s not surprising that non-AI craft has become the new flex. It nearly guarantees that love, labour, and mastery remain visible in the final product, and it signals a commitment to creation that no shortcut can counterfeit.
Matt Nelson
MD at Storefront Music
For me, it comes down to trust. That’s why I am tuning out of the AI conversation, focusing on human collaboration and craft instead. Looking at social media, the news, watching content etc. has me fact checking everything I see (and hear). It’s exhausting.
In advertising we work hard to build trust between brands and consumers. How can we expect consumers to trust a brand if they feel they are being tricked? No one wants to second guess every purchase decision they make.
By focusing on production quality and capturing exceptional talent performances we’re finding clients hear the difference. They are craving the real thing, authenticity, and they don’t want to feel tricked either. They feel more part of the process and there is a sense of transparency about the product they are getting.
AI is also trained to give you what it thinks you want. The most commonly expected answer or result. To me, that’s antithetical to what we do in the creative industry. Yes, we use inspiration from many places like AI, but we aim to find the blank or ‘white space’ on the board, pushing ourselves to find the unexpected.
Am I anti AI? Not really. I think it’s a cool technology and some of the tools being made are incredible. When it replaces craft as a whole we all lose and will find the resulting work converging to feel and sound the same. Quite the opposite of standing out like Brands want to.
Armin Korsos
Director and founder of Caymanite and Dynamic Camera Systems (DCS)
We’re already seeing the shift happen in plain sight: the behind-the-scenes has become the headline. Not as marketing garnish, but as proof. In a world where AI can fabricate anything, showing that something was actually built, lit, rigged, driven, or climbed suddenly carries weight again. Audiences don’t just want the image, they want to know how it was made, who was there, and what it took to pull off the shot.
For craft insiders, this isn’t surprising. Process has always been the point. But now, that process has become the flex. The analogue way, real locations, real crews, real constraints, signals intention and care in a way synthetic perfection can’t. You feel it when a piece of work has gravity, when the friction of reality is present in the frame.
Brands are starting to recognize that too. When a company like Rivian publicly draws a line and says they won’t use AI for their car commercials, that decision is as strategic as it is creative. It tells the audience that the product exists in the real world, and so does the brand’s point of view.
The danger on the other side is obvious. When everything, from commercials to social captions to brand films, is generated, polished, and optimized into sameness, it quickly turns into noise. There’s no texture, no memory, no longevity. Non-AI craft isn’t about nostalgia; it’s about trust. And right now, trust is the rarest material in the room.
Freddie Powell
Founder and director at DROOL Productions
I don’t think non-AI work will ever be the ‘new flex’. It’s a tool to be used by filmmakers, in the same way 3D became a tool for animators or digital for editors. It doesn’t replace craft. I think it’ll multiply it. It’ll multiply everything, like Miracle-Gro. There’ll be more, even worse, slop. And there’ll be more, even better, craft.
Anything that lets you make twice as much work, in half the time, for half the price and twice as good is going to get used. Of course it is. I’m being slightly facetious, but the point stands.
I can either sit on the sidelines shaking my head, or I can muck in and work out what it actually unlocks. I can tut and protest, or I can ask a more useful question: what can I do now that I genuinely couldn’t before?
That’s where it gets interesting. Underfunded projects that were creatively exciting but practically impossible. Short films that used to rely on grants and crowdfunding. Big visual ideas that never made sense on a spreadsheet. Suddenly, some of those might actually work!
The tide is going out. And pretty soon we’ll see who’s wearing pants.
Doug Stivers
Head of production and EP at Cutwater
Yes. At least, that's my hope.
When anything can be generated, abundance erodes spectacle. Eye-popping visuals no longer signal effort, access, or cost; they signal fluency with tools. In that environment, value migrates away from what is possible toward what is rare, what is slow, and what carries human consequence.
Analogue processes leave fingerprints: imperfections, asymmetry, micro-variations, human timing. These artifacts become proof of authorship in a sea of frictionless content. They say: someone was here; something was risked.
In an AI-saturated landscape, audiences increasingly ask (consciously or not): What am I looking at, and why should I believe it?
Handmade, physically grounded processes answer that question without explanation. They imply:
● Investment (time, cost, expertise),
● Commitment (you can’t undo everything instantly),
● Accountability (choices are locked in).
This isn’t a return to analogue as a rejection of technology. It’s analogue as a contrast strategy. Analogue is ‘The Power of Slow’. The power of re-sketches, re-writes and drafts. Purposeful imperfection. The most sophisticated brands won’t choose either/or. They’ll use AI for scale, iteration, and speed, and reserve analogue craft for the moments that need weight, permanence, or emotional credibility. AI will flood the middle. Craft will anchor the top.
Natalie Price
Production director at DEPT® UK
AI has fundamentally changed what visual quality means; how something is made is now more important than how it looks. Work done by humans, i.e., the hard way, is becoming the new marker of value.
As AI content becomes more common, audiences are becoming more selective about what feels worthwhile. Brands are moving back toward well-crafted, considered content — for example, long-form, once overshadowed by short-form video, is making a strong comeback.
The trend is perhaps most visible in luxury and fashion, where human-led production is being emphasised. Recently, Valentino and Burberry have both turned to artist-led campaigns produced without AI, and Hugo Boss launched its first 2026 campaign in collaboration with a paper artist – a medium that feels inherently “anti-AI”. As AI output becomes more widespread, brands are turning to human craft as a signal of quality and status.
As a result, brands won’t just practice craft – they’ll make a point of showing it. Clear signals such as ‘no AI’ or visible processes will become new quality cues.
In the AI era, craft can’t be assumed. It has to be shown – and that’s where value now sits.
Nicholas Kleczewski
Director at Chromista
No matter what the new-fangled tool of the minute is, this quote remains true: “Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty.”
As it exists today, creative AI is purely derivative. It is carried on the backs of countless labours of love from real, hard, human work. What it offers is access to the appearance and replication of craft, not necessarily its creation. That may change, and both can co-exist, but for now, I do think there will be a valid premium put on those who do the real hard work versus those who imitate it.
The skills to actually craft whatever that is in the real world, those are the people you want to surround yourself with professionally and inspirationally. I don’t know if I’d call it a mark of prestige or luxury, as true creativity is nearly always born from the exact opposite, but again, the quote remains true: “I have never in my life envied a human being who led an easy life.”
Jordi Bares
Founder and ECD at rohtau
Something fundamental is shifting in how we tell stories. After years of audiences being bombarded with heavy VFX and flashy transitions that serve no real purpose, we're seeing fatigue set in, especially from Gen Z and Gen Alpha. Too many projects rely on spectacle while their stories can barely stand on their own. Now add the flood of AI-slop content washing over social media and traditional broadcasters, and it's no surprise that younger audiences especially are tuning out these brands entirely.
What they're craving instead is authenticity and craft, imperfections included. We're already seeing celluloid making a premium comeback, combined with traditional arts like modelmaking, puppeteering, and physical set construction. Those of us who worked in the era when VFX was applied to film have valuable experience to draw upon and indeed have for the last 5 years.
The future likely lies in hybrid approaches that marry CGI with traditional craft. Take the Working With Cancer project directed by Niclas Larsson, where a beautifully crafted puppet was brought to life by hand while VFX took the backseat. The result captured something intangible that pure CGI or AI simply cannot replicate.
The challenge now is whether advertisers will commit to this premium execution, because building prosthetics, animatronics, and puppets requires something increasingly precious: time and money.
Matthieu Chiama
Creative lead and partner at Biborg
Is this really a new flex? Working with the very best creative and technical talents has always been a flex. Our attention was just momentarily hijacked by the relentless flood of content, but the true artisans, those who actually master their tools (including AI) never stopped creating.
Take the Anno 117 launch trailer we crafted at Biborg, in collaboration with Mathematic and Keywords. That complex hybrid of Live Action, CGI, and gameplay required a level of orchestration you simply can’t achieve with your eyes closed. The danger today lies in the myth that access to the tool equates to talent. Tools change, but the true flex remains constant: it is the vision of the women and men behind the craft that creates a genuine emotional bond.
Sam Sloman
Head of design at Born Social
My firm belief is that craft has always been a marker of prestige, quality and luxury – not only in analogue execution, but in digital as well. I am not convinced that this has changed in the age of AI.
We are increasingly seeing that those who develop mastery of AI, and who take the time to craft outputs, can create work that is truly awe-inspiring – far beyond the capability of the average layperson. In response to AI’s rise, we now look harder for authenticity and ‘proof of life’ in what we see and consume.
Analogue craft (which I adore) has always been a flex, now strengthened by nostalgia. Its value lies in being a pure and untarnished celebration of human effort and skill. But that does not mean the same cannot be true of AI.
What remains constant is the human behind the tool. Passion, dedication, obsession and taste determine the level of craft applied to the work – and therefore its prestige. Human craft is always visible and valuable, regardless of execution. The rise of AI is not the death of craft. The future of creative work isn’t artificial – it’s intentional. Like any tool, AI can be awe-inspiring or soulless, depending on the vision and craft guiding it. AI doesn’t lower standards – it exposes them.
Keith Cartwright
Founder and CCO at Cartwright
There’s a famous quote from Marshall McLuhan, he said “We shape our tools, and thereafter our tools shape us.”
Never more fitting of a warning as it pertains to AI. Yes, AI is still a tool.
It can replicate many things, but what AI cannot replicate is the spark of human imagination. Great advertising has always relied on intuition, cultural insight, emotional nuance, and the ability to tell stories that hit deeply on a personal level. These elements come from lived experiences, empathy, and the unique perspectives that only people can bring.
Now with less time, creative individuals are free to dream bigger, experiment, and craft messages that speak to what makes us most human.
The future of advertising isn’t humans versus AI, it’s humans using AI. And together, they have the potential to produce ideas and campaigns that would make HAL 9000 blush.
Michael Bucchino
Director of Film Craft at CYLNDR Studios
AI may have no limits, but limits are where great visual storytelling happens. The creatives who have mastered analogue craft are getting sharper. They’re pushing the limits of what humans can do, and that mastery is becoming increasingly legible and valuable.
That is why shooting on film is having such a dramatic comeback. Film carries intention and authenticity baked into the process. What artists are doing with it feels incredibly relevant right now because it can’t be infinite or effortless.
My hope for AI production is that it doesn’t replace craft, it puts pressure on it. AI shouldn’t scare us, it should raise the bar. The work will get better because it has to. It’s okay to be scared of what is coming. Just don’t be in denial of it.
Rita Šteimane
CEO and co-owner at Panic
What makes an ad or a story actually stick? It’s rarely one thing. It’s the care, a visual style you haven’t quite seen before. A story that understands the audience without over-explaining, and a punchy ending. You can feel when every detail has been considered, when the work respects the audience. Illustration, animation, and CGI are works that demand patience, obsession, and dealing with discomfort. The people who stay are the ones who care about how things are made, not just how they look at the end. When those people come together, work starts to carry weight. It moves you. You laugh, maybe you cry, maybe you send it to a friend. That doesn’t come from the final look alone. It comes from intent, time, and human judgment.
As a society, we’re more connected than ever, yet more starved for real connection. We’re craving signals of care, effort, and empathy. Proof that something was made by people who actually felt something while doing it. That’s why authenticity is starting to matter more again. Brands are under pressure to show their effort, not efficiency. Behind-the-scenes moments are being shared more, showing production decisions that are not the cheapest or fastest option. That care is becoming the message. None of this ignores the reality of AI. It’s putting pressure on how illustrators, animators, producers, and creatives are expected to work day to day. The tools are incredibly tempting; they promise a shortcut past the messy middle, straight to a finished image. Or better yet, ten versions.
The problem isn’t the tech itself. It’s what happens when we stop caring about how we arrive at ideas. An agency creative recently told me that during pitches, teams increasingly go with ideas that have matching good-looking AI-generated visuals, not because the ideas are better, but because the images look convincing, safer, more "almost done". Even though the output can be random, or just what’s easier to generate. If ideas are selected based on which ones are easiest to do with AI, everything begins to converge toward what’s already popular, already tried, already seen hundreds of times. What we do has never been about the final image. It’s about the thinking, the decisions, the compromises, the arguments, the mess along the way. That middle is where the meaning is found. When we skip it, the audience will feel it immediately, even if they can’t say why. They will sense that no one really cares. When we are drowning in content, non-AI craft is going to read as a signal of intent. Time spent will have to be visible. Human judgment will be a feature, not a liability. Choosing to make something slower, harder, and more deliberate will be a statement. Because care is rare, and when it shows up on screen, people still notice.
Stephen Niedzwiecki
Creative co-founder at Yard NYC
With AI, the idea of analogue craft has been obliterated. Make requests, push some buttons, and POOF, you've got a script, a film, photos, illustrations, on and on. But there is a soul missing from the final product -- missing details, depth, natural textures. The humanity that comes with hand-crafted work has gotten lost.
We are already seeing a shift to its return. For example, the brand Hermes recently redesigned its website and replaced its slick imagery with beautiful hand-drawn illustrations by artist Linda Merad. While AI-generated content dominates the digital space, they have chosen to put human creativity and collaboration first.
The days when photographers and directors shot more on film, illustrators painted and drew on paper first, typographers created fonts by hand, writers wrote, will all make their return into a creative project near you!
Mike Groenewald
EVP, ECD at Chemistry
For the better part of three years, AI has had us in a WWE headlock. Showboating with its ability to create outlandish videos and eye-popping visuals, and further tightening its grip on us with its speed and efficiency. It’s on the lips of every agency, client, and brand. Everyone has it. Anyone can use it.
The democratisation of powerful creative tools has sent the advertising and production industry into a spin. Suddenly, things just feel too easy. While the power of AI is undeniable – and any brand, agency, or creative that ignores it risks going the way of the dinosaurs – the same can be true for those who overly embrace AI.
The new flex that’s emerging: brands that have embraced “hard mode.” Brands that are actively seeking out true masters of their craft –stop-motion artists, hand-drawn animators, and highly technical cinematographers. Makers whose work is tactile, human, and nearly impossible to replicate. In this shift, the process of making and “showing your homework” is becoming as important as the final product itself.
It’s no coincidence that much of this work comes from brands that understand the value of craft in their own products. Think Apple, Audi, Disney, and Porsche.
Disney recently announced its planned return to hand-drawn animation for future features. Audi’s Christmas commercial featured delightful stop-motion, painstakingly shot frame by frame. Apple, rather than leaning into its own AI tools, went old-school for Apple TV’s latest branding. None of this is accidental.
At its core, creativity is about human expression. It’s why we still love physical galleries, live music, bookshops, and theatres. There’s a growing yearning for something un-digitized and un-algorithmic. Creativity is a wonderful thing; you can’t contain it, give it rules, bottle it, or bully it. It always finds a NEW way.
The new “slow way” is a beautifully handcrafted middle finger to our current instant-gratification, digital-first world.
Danielle Kappy
CEO and EP at Frank Content
In advertising, AI is a great tool. It excels at spotting patterns and accelerating execution, from pre-vis and editing support to optimization. But it can’t replace the human creativity that makes work original. Vision, big ideas, cultural awareness, and sensing where trends are headed come from lived experience, not algorithms. Directing and filmmaking, working with teams, shaping performances, executing ideas, reading a room, all rely on instinct and emotional intelligence. These skills are inherently human. AI can absolutely support the craft, but it can’t navigate the emotional and cultural nuance where great creative work really lives, in the chaos, contradiction, and brilliance that make people feel something, remember it, and believe in it.
Sye Allen
Director at Kode UK
Visual spectacle’s been rinsed dry like a party drug, and now prompts can spit out the impossible. But when you can generate anything on demand, everything starts to lose its meaning.
So a different kind of ‘edgy’ crawls back out of hibernation. Locked-off camera. Performance. Clients call it risky because there’s nowhere to hide. No distraction. No get-out-of-jail-free card. Just script, casting, direction, light.
And this is where craft flexes again. ‘Handmade’ isn’t more precise than machines. It’s more intentional. Time, care, judgement, authorship. It leaves fingerprints. Gandalf and the Hobbits, forced perspective and set builds doing the scale. Audrey II in ‘Little Shop of Horrors’, puppeteers and actors moving in sync so the plant feels alive.
That effort reads on screen.
For brands, that “proof of work” becomes a positioning tool, not just a production choice. Prestige, quality and luxury aren’t about louder visuals; they’re about credible visuals that give you goosebumps. Credibility is the new flex, and today’s premium isn’t pixels. It’s trust. The rarest material in the industry.
