Scaling creativity in the age of AI

AI 时代下的创意规模化

Storytelling is core to humanity’s DNA, stemming from our impulse to express ideals, warnings, hopes, and experiences. Technology has always been woven through the medium and the distribution: from early humans’ innovation of natural pigments and charcoals for cave paintings to literal representation by the camera. 讲故事是人类基因的核心，源于我们表达理想、警示、希望和经历的冲动。技术始终贯穿于媒介与传播之中：从早期人类利用天然颜料和木炭进行洞穴壁画创作，到摄影机带来的写实呈现，莫不如此。

The landscape of storytelling continues to shift under our feet. Social and streaming platforms have multiplied, audiences have fragmented, and our demand for fresh, unique media is insatiable. A recent McKinsey podcast cites that we are watching upwards of 12 hours of video content daily, often on multiple devices and multiple platforms. 讲故事的格局正在我们脚下不断演变。社交和流媒体平台激增，受众群体日益碎片化，而我们对新鲜、独特媒体内容的需求永无止境。麦肯锡最近的一期播客指出，我们每天观看视频内容的时间超过 12 小时，且往往是在多种设备和多个平台上进行。

All this content is expensive to produce: With a baseline budget of $150M, a Hollywood feature runs $1M per minute of finished film; prestige streaming content is in the hundreds of thousands per minute. And since consumers want to engage with authentic, original material, every company is now effectively a media company. That means we all face the same pressure: more content, with the same time and budget constraints. 所有这些内容的制作成本都非常高昂：以 1.5 亿美元的基准预算计算，好莱坞电影每分钟成片的成本约为 100 万美元；高质量流媒体内容的每分钟成本也高达数十万美元。由于消费者希望接触到真实、原创的素材，每家公司现在实际上都成了媒体公司。这意味着我们都面临着同样的压力：在时间和预算限制不变的情况下，产出更多的内容。

There is no longer a question whether to use AI for content; the math doesn’t work any other way. What leaders need to focus on now is how to adapt responsibly, protect brand integrity, uplift team creativity, and build customer trust. A few things worth holding onto as this era accelerates: AI amplifies what’s already there, both good and bad. Weak strategy stays weak. Responsible adoption means knowing what’s in your tools and models. Provenance and transparency are the foundation, not the finish line. Scale without taste is just noise. Investing in your team’s judgment is what makes more content matter. 现在已经不再是“是否要使用 AI 制作内容”的问题，因为从算术逻辑上讲，没有其他路径可行。领导者现在需要关注的是如何负责任地适应、保护品牌完整性、提升团队创造力并建立客户信任。随着这个时代的加速发展，有几点值得坚持：AI 会放大已有的事物，无论是好是坏。薄弱的策略依然薄弱。负责任的采用意味着要了解你的工具和模型中包含什么。来源证明和透明度是基础，而非终点。没有品味的规模化只是噪音。投资于团队的判断力，才能让更多的内容产生价值。

Fundamentals of great storytelling have not changed. Regardless of format or channel, what makes audiences lean in are still characters, arc, ingenuity, and surprise. 优秀叙事的本质从未改变。无论格式或渠道如何，吸引受众的依然是角色、情节弧线、独创性和惊喜感。

The permanent sprint

永不停歇的冲刺

Creative teams are trapped on the endless hamster wheel of production, and it’s not slowing down. According to Adobe research, content demand will grow 5x over the next two years. Social content shelf life is now measured in hours, not weeks. Keeping fresh work in the pipeline is a permanent sprint, requiring teams to rethink how creative production functions. 创意团队被困在无休止的生产“仓鼠轮”中，而且这种节奏丝毫没有放缓的迹象。根据 Adobe 的研究，未来两年内容需求将增长 5 倍。社交内容的生命周期现在以小时而非周来计算。保持新鲜作品的持续产出是一场永不停歇的冲刺，这要求团队重新思考创意生产的运作方式。

The first move is freeing creative teams by having AI absorb the repetitive work so they have space for the strategic creative decisions that require human ingenuity. In a recent study from Adobe, 94% of creatives report that AI helps them produce content faster, saving an average of 17 hours per week. That recovered time is not a productivity metric; it is renewed creative capacity. 第一步是通过 AI 来承担重复性工作，从而解放创意团队，让他们有空间进行需要人类智慧的战略性创意决策。在 Adobe 最近的一项研究中，94% 的创意人员表示 AI 帮助他们更快地制作内容，平均每周节省 17 小时。节省下来的时间不仅仅是一个生产力指标，更是重获的创意潜能。

As a use case, Nestlé offers a useful blueprint. Its teams operate across 180 countries with a portfolio of iconic brands including Nescafé, KitKat, and Purina. Using Adobe Firefly Custom Models embedded in existing content workflows allows teams to generate assets in a brand-informed style without disrupting creative flow. At Nestlé, workflow cycle times dropped 50%. “With Firefly Custom Models, we can react at the speed of culture. It’s the closest thing we’ve had to magic.” says Wael Jabi, global strategic comms lead for KitKat. 雀巢提供了一个有用的案例蓝图。其团队在 180 个国家开展业务，拥有包括雀巢咖啡、奇巧和普瑞纳在内的一系列标志性品牌。通过将 Adobe Firefly 自定义模型嵌入现有的内容工作流，团队能够在不打断创意流程的情况下，生成符合品牌风格的素材。在雀巢，工作流周期缩短了 50%。奇巧全球战略传播主管 Wael Jabi 表示：“有了 Firefly 自定义模型，我们能够以文化传播的速度做出反应。这是我们所见过的最接近魔法的东西。”

As we move into the agentic era, the possibilities expand further. Adobe’s Creative Agent thinks in systems, not tasks, orchestrating across workflows, apps, and processes to close the gap between idea and execution, and get teams out of the production cycles that consume their productivity. 随着我们进入智能体（Agentic）时代，可能性进一步扩大。Adobe 的 Creative Agent 以系统而非任务的视角进行思考，通过跨工作流、应用程序和流程的协调，缩小创意与执行之间的差距，并将团队从消耗生产力的生产周期中解放出来。

Build for your brand, not every brand

为你的品牌而建，而非所有品牌

A company’s brand is how the world recognizes and connects with them. And it’s more than a collection of assets—it is dynamic, subjective, and expressed in thousands of micro-decisions made every day by the people who know it best. As production scales, keeping everything tuned to the brand gets more challenging. Off-the-shelf AI cannot replicate the level of nuance creative teams bring to content, and there’s a real cost to getting it wrong; diluting a brand in market with almost-right output is not an acceptable option. Customer trust is fragile. 公司的品牌是世界识别并与之建立联系的方式。它不仅仅是一系列资产的集合——它是动态的、主观的，并体现在最了解品牌的人每天所做的成千上万个微小决策中。随着生产规模的扩大，保持一切与品牌调性一致变得更具挑战性。现成的 AI 无法复制创意团队为内容带来的细微差别，而一旦出错，代价是真实的；用“差不多”的产出稀释品牌市场价值是不可接受的。客户信任是脆弱的。

Starting with a bespoke AI model built with Adobe Firefly Foundry addresses this directly. Firefly Foundry starts with a commercially safe base model and trains further on a company’s IP, making it possible to produce content that genuinely reflects the team’s vision. And to ensure that Firefly Foundry models truly represent the creatives at the helm, Adobe has partnered with film studios like Wonder Studios, Promise.ai, and B5 Studios, and the “big three” talent agencies CAA, UTA, and WME to deeply understand what it means (and what it takes) to build an IP-immersive model that keeps creatives at the center as these film studios and talent agencies scale their visions. 从使用 Adobe Firefly Foundry 构建的定制 AI 模型入手，可以直接解决这个问题。Firefly Foundry 以商业安全的基准模型为起点，并基于公司的知识产权（IP）进行深度训练，从而能够产出真正反映团队愿景的内容。为了确保 Firefly Foundry 模型能真正代表掌舵的创意人员，Adobe 与 Wonder Studios、Promise.ai 和 B5 Studios 等电影工作室，以及 CAA、UTA 和 WME 这三大经纪公司建立了合作伙伴关系，深入了解在这些工作室和经纪公司扩展其愿景时，构建一个以创意人员为核心的 IP 沉浸式模型意味着什么（以及需要什么）。

These brand ecosystems can accelerate nearly every phase of the production process, from ideation and storyboarding to production and promotion, all while preserving artistry and authorship. And to power the next generation of creativity and content, Adobe has recently announced a strategic partnership with NVIDIA, delivering best-in-class creative control along with enterprise-grade, commercially safe content at scale. Generic AI gives teams a starting point. But a model trained on a brand’s own IP gets them to the finish line, while still leaving room for the creative calls that matter most. 这些品牌生态系统可以加速生产过程的几乎每个阶段，从构思和故事板到制作和推广，同时保留艺术性和原创性。为了赋能下一代创意和内容，Adobe 最近宣布与 NVIDIA 建立战略合作伙伴关系，提供一流的创意控制能力，以及企业级、商业安全的大规模内容产出。通用 AI 为团队提供了一个起点，但基于品牌自身 IP 训练的模型能带他们到达终点，同时仍为最重要的创意决策留出空间。

When agents become the audience

当智能体成为受众

AI is not only reshaping how we create; it is reshaping how customers find and engage with brands entirely. According to Adobe Digital Insights, AI-powered shopping has surged 4,700%. Agentic web traffic is up 7,851% year over year. Yet, most businesses still have significant gaps in AI-led brand visibility. If content is invisible to AI agents, then a brand is invisible to customers. Major League Baseball is ahead of this curve. Using Adobe LLM Optimizer, the league monitors how its content surfaces across AI interfaces and makes real-time adjustments to maintain visibility. AI 不仅在重塑我们的创作方式，还在彻底重塑客户发现品牌并与之互动的方式。根据 Adobe Digital Insights 的数据，AI 驱动的购物增长了 4,700%。智能体网络流量同比增长了 7,851%。然而，大多数企业在 AI 主导的品牌可见度方面仍存在巨大差距。如果内容对 AI 智能体不可见，那么品牌对客户也就不可见。美国职业棒球大联盟（MLB）走在了这一趋势的前沿。通过使用 Adobe LLM Optimizer，联盟能够监控其内容在 AI 界面上的呈现方式，并进行实时调整以保持可见度。