Why The Liberty Guild Is Adding AI Artists to Its Creative Offering

Recently, The Liberty Guild stole another step on the rest of the industry by extending its roster of global strategic talent to offer its clients the opportunity to work with the best AI artists from around the globe.

​Jon Williams, CEO and founder, tells us why the move liberates creativity, battles against AI slop and allows him to revolutionise his offering without selling out his creative soul.

Q> Why have you decided to add AI artists to your offering? It seems markedly different to what everyone else is offering.

Jon> The Liberty Guild exists to work with the best talent in the world and make sure those skills can be applied to our client briefs. We’ve been doing that for seven years with some of the most awarded creatives and strategists in the world.

As our definition of “creative” evolves, it makes sense that we would welcome members of the emerging creator economy as well as AI creators, creative directors, and others who can use AI to bring ideas into the light.

To view AI merely as a production tool is to misunderstand its power. It compresses thinking and production into one. It’s not unlike when Adobe first appeared in the hands of creatives.

Q> What will they deliver to your product? And for your clients?

Jon> They bring depth, richness, variety and different ways of approaching and executing the work of ideation. Some clients will want to go straight to AI, some will prefer traditional methods, and others will lean into creators.

Every client has different needs, so as a business, we must be flexible, agile, and responsive. The world is a hustle.

A hustle we brought to our recent cmapiang for Wizz Air. In partnership with Monks we created the entire thing in AI. The campaign idea, concept, script and storyboard and all of the digital out of home, were created by a multi-award-winning local Spanish creative team steeped in language and culture. Then, in a first for The Liberty Guild and for WIZZ Air, instead of the project moving into the traditional production cycle we used a selection of AI to deliver every element of the campaign. Midjourney, Runway, Google's Nano Banana, Topaz, and Flux were used to deliver all still and moving image generation, casting and persona generation, editing, grading, sound design, and even voiceover to create a whole campaign at a fraction of the cost in a fraction of the time.

At the core, we need to produce brilliant ideas for clients. Then find the best people or technology to augment them and activate them.

Q> And how are they responding?

Jon> Creatives, whether traditional or emerging, spend their careers finding innovative, intriguing, culturally impactful ways of selling client products - but selling themselves can be much harder.

When you’re giving 100% to a brief, it’s difficult to think about new business. We provide the pipeline, the team, the support - and we always pay on time.

Q> How do you define the role of an “AI artist” within your offering, and how does it complement traditional creatives and strategists?

Jon> Sometimes they work hand-in-hand. For example, a script may be written by an award-winning creative team, but then brought to life by AI artists. No film crew, no director, no catering truck - just an array of talent helping create a beautiful finished product. And it happens far quicker than it used to.

Clients’ budgets are shrinking, so creativity has to work harder to deliver stand-out ideas.

Other times, the client wants something that comes directly from the mind of an AI-augmented creative.

Q> How do you evaluate the creativity or value of AI-generated work in comparison to human-led work?

Jon> In terms of value - we charge a product fee, not by the hour. I place the same value on an idea whether it arrives on a marketer’s notepad or as a MidJourney file. Execution isn’t the idea. Even within AI-generated work, you must be able to see the idea. And there’s plenty of fluff out there.

In terms of creativity - this isn’t any different from evaluating a radio ad or a TV ad. It’s what we’ve always done: you look for the idea. It’s all still human-led—someone has driven it, prompted it, responded to it. It doesn’t just appear out of thin air, like the shopkeeper in Mr Benn.

Q> What skill sets or backgrounds do your AI artists typically have? Are they technologists, creatives, or a blend of both?

Jon> They’re a bit of both—everything and nothing. It’s not unusual to find someone from a craft background using AI brilliantly, because they understand the subject matter and what they’re trying to make.

It could be a self-taught kid in a basement in Brighton who’s amazing. Talent can come from anywhere.

Q> And how will you keep your creative soul intact?

Jon> I live for ideas. I love them. And I love the crazy people who have them. That hasn’t changed—because I’m always looking at everything I see for the best idea.

My creative soul is very much intact. I still get surprised and delighted every day.

Q> You say the idea remains the most important thing. How difficult is it to make that a reality in the industry today?

Jon> It’s probably true that 80% of output isn’t amazing—and much of that will soon become the feedstock of someone’s AI-driven content engine.

The idea will always be the most important thing, regardless of what happens around it.

In reality, only about 5% of creativity has ever been truly beautiful; the rest has been just output. Ideas will remain critical—because they’re how you charm, influence, and persuade people.