3 Strategies for Creative AI Adoption
By Adam Kleinberg
If you’re still on the fence about integrating AI into your creative and marketing processes, I hate to break it to you, but you’re already behind. The question isn’t if AI is going to transform every part of your business—it’s how fast you’re going to let it.
The brands that are winning today aren’t waiting for AI to land in their laps. They’re figuring out how to use it to their advantage, right now. So, let’s talk about three strategies you can adopt today to scale your brand management, streamline your creative workflows, and automate your repetitive processes with “agentic” AI. Because if you’re not doing it, your competitors will be.
1) Manage Your Brand at Scale with AI Tools
Brand consistency is crucial, especially when your team is spread across different geographies, time zones, and departments. But managing that consistency can be like herding cats. That’s where AI tools like Canva Enterprise come in. They help you set brand guidelines, permissions, and access controls so your team isn’t going rogue with off-brand creative.
Imagine setting up predefined templates that every team across the globe can use—on brand, on message, every time—even while using generative AI. No more revising every little thing for compliance. You can let AI do the heavy lifting, while your team focuses on what matters: creativity and strategy.
Canva Enterprise marketing kits aren’t just for creative. They come with templates you can customize for every part of the planning process and can even integrate with Salesforce to bring real-time revenue data into your reports.
2) Define Creative Workflows for Specific Use Cases
AI doesn’t fix everything with a magic wand. One of the biggest mistakes I see brands make is thinking AI is a one-size-fits-all solution. The truth? AI only works as well as the workflows you put in place. The first step to scaling AI in your marketing efforts is defining specific creative workflows.
WTF are creative workflows, you ask? Well, you need to break down the tasks your team does repeatedly—whether it’s generating social posts, managing creative approvals, or optimizing ad copy—and map them out clearly.
- If you are a fashion brand, you might have granular workflows to do tasks like creating photorealistic on-model images from 2D or 3D flat images. Or if you have on-model photos, you might want to generate color swaps, background swaps or model swaps. Each of these requires a distinct set of steps—often using a combination of tools—to execute.
- Depending on which use of the above use cases you’re focused on, the best tool for the job may be common image AI generation tools like MidJourney or Photoshop, or specialized tools like Botika or LaLaLand. Often, it will be more than one.
- If you are a B2B technology company, you might have a workflow for researching strategic accounts, comparing their business challenges with your company value propositions, writing personalized ABM (Account-Based Marketing) content, and populating a design template.
If you don’t identify where AI can make a difference, it won’t. AI thrives on structure, so give it a framework to work within. Once your workflows are clearly defined, AI can take over and automate the heck out of it. But first, you need to nail the process.
3) Develop Autonomous AI Agents to Automate Workflows
Once you’ve nailed down your workflows, it’s time to start automating them with Autonomous AI Agents. We’re not talking about some distant future scenario where AI takes over the world. This is happening now. At Traction, we can build AI Agent Proof of Concepts (POCs) for your brand and have them up and running in a matter of weeks.
These AI agents can take over repetitive, time-sucking tasks—like analyzing customer data, automating email marketing, or even managing social media posting—while learning and getting better at their jobs over time. They can execute workflows across multiple software platforms too. The best part? They free up your human team to focus on the creative, high-impact work that only they can do. It’s like giving your team a superpower.
Imagine being able to upload a brief into Slack and have an on-brand campaign created, pushed live to digital channels and optimized in real time.
You can do that. Today. We can help.
If you want to scale your marketing and creative processes—and futureproof your brand—these are the three strategies to start with. Use tools like Canva Enterprise to manage your brand across global teams, define your creative workflows, and then automate them with “Agentic” AI. It’s not just about efficiency. It’s about staying competitive in an industry that’s changing faster than you can blink.
If you’re ready to get ahead of the curve, . We can help you develop an AI strategy that works for your business—and have it up and running before your competitors even know what hit them.
Key Takeaways
Prioritize Immediate AI Adoption: Brands must integrate AI into creative and marketing processes now, as delay means falling behind competitors. Implementing these strategies is crucial to futureproof your brand and scale processes.
Scale Brand Consistency with AI Tools: Use AI platforms (like Canva Enterprise) to manage brand consistency at scale across global teams by setting predefined templates, permissions, and access controls. This allows AI to handle compliance while human teams focus on strategy.
Define Specific Creative Workflows: Successful AI implementation requires establishing clearly mapped, specific creative workflows (e.g., generating B2B personalized ABM content or fashion image swaps). AI is not a magic, one-size-fits-all solution, and it requires a framework to thrive.
Automate Workflows using Agentic AI: Once workflows are defined, automate repetitive, time-sucking tasks (like data analysis or social media posting) using Autonomous AI Agents ("Agentic" AI). This frees up human teams to focus on high-impact creative work.
Frequently Asked Questions About Creative AI Adoption Strategy
Q1: Why is immediate AI adoption critical for brands to futureproof marketing strategies?
A1: Delaying the integration of AI into creative and marketing processes means falling behind competitors. Brands that are winning today are actively figuring out how to use AI to their advantage, right now, to scale their brand management, streamline creative workflows, and automate repetitive processes. Adopting these strategies is crucial for staying competitive in a rapidly changing industry.
Q2: How can AI tools like Canva Enterprise scale brand consistency across global teams?
A2: AI tools such as Canva Enterprise help manage brand consistency at scale, which is crucial when teams are spread across different geographies and departments. These tools allow brands to set predefined templates, brand guidelines, permissions, and access controls. This framework ensures every team, even while using generative AI, remains on-brand and on-message, allowing AI to handle compliance and free up the human team for strategy.
Q3: What are 'creative workflows,' and why must they be defined before scaling AI adoption?
A3: Creative workflows are the clearly mapped, specific steps used to execute tasks your team performs repeatedly, such as optimizing ad copy, generating social posts, or managing creative approvals. Defining these workflows is the first step to scaling AI because AI is not a one-size-fits-all solution; it works only as well as the framework you provide. For example, a fashion brand might define a specific workflow for creating photorealistic on-model images or generating color swaps. AI thrives on structure, so defining the process is necessary before automation.
Q4: How do Autonomous AI Agents automate repetitive marketing tasks?
A4: Autonomous AI Agents (also referred to as "Agentic" AI) automate repetitive, time-sucking tasks that typically occupy human teams. These agents can take over processes such as analyzing customer data, automating email marketing, or managing social media posting. They can execute defined workflows across multiple software platforms and learn and improve over time, allowing human teams to focus on high-impact, creative work.
Yesterday, I had the honor of being invited to speak on the topic of “Building a Brand in the AI Era” at the CMO Alliance Summit in San Francisco.
The marketing landscape is undergoing a seismic shift, propelled by rapid advancements in artificial intelligence. At our most recent meeting of The Futureproof Project, our CEO Adam Kleinberg and AI consultant, Sunil Subhedar, shared a new Futureproof Framework for how brands can harness AI's potential to drive innovation and gain a competitive edge.
About a decade ago, I had dinner with some clients from one of the three largest banks in America. In between bites of his $75 steak, one of them proudly boasted, "In the future, we're not going to be a banking company. We're going to be a data company."