Making the Most of AI and CGI in Visual Production
How to Use Both for Brilliant Brand Visuals
AI is helping marketing teams work more efficiently than ever before, with the power to create eye-catching visuals almost instantly. AI and CGI image generation are two powerful tools in the modern marketing toolkit, each with unique strengths. Whilst AI-generated content is great for exploring early concepts, CGI rendering remains the gold standard for producing refined, high-quality visuals. Here’s how to use the two tools to complement each other, and why CGI is the right choice for finalising production.
AI-Generation – rapid ideation with flexibility
AI-generated images are ideal for the initial stages of creative development. When marketing teams are brainstorming or exploring visual directions, AI’s ability to produce quick, varied images makes it perfect for rapid ideation.
Fast turnaround: AI can generate high-quality draft images almost instantly, enabling teams to visualise ideas without committing to extensive production resources.
Exploratory: AI images allow for diverse styles, layouts, and colour schemes offering creative teams a broad range of options to explore.
Cost effective: AI-generated images require fewer resources than traditional image creation methods, making them ideal for draft phases where flexibility is key, and changes are frequent.
This flexibility means creative teams can explore a variety of approaches without the risk of sunk costs, allowing them to refine concepts in real-time based on feedback.
Where AI reaches its limits... for now
AI-generated images are excellent for initial ideas, but its limitations come in the form of a lack of precision, a poor adherence to subjective considerations such as focal points and ambience, and failure to accurately render intricate details and life-like environmental features.
Lack of accuracy: AI tools struggle to capture exact specifications, such as precise dimensions, accurate textures, and specific elements.
Limited control: AI models generate visuals based on training data, which can be restrictive and lead to repetitive results, leaving marketing teams with minimal control over fine details or specific brand elements.
Risk of inconsistencies: Without customisation, AI images can lack the consistency and quality control required to create accurate life-like renderings, which is crucial to maintain brand integrity.
These limits may be overcome in time, as the programmes learn at speed and are constantly being trained to improve their output, but as of now, these remain the key reasons that AI visuals will rarely make it to the final stages of creative marketing content production.
The value of CGI for professional, high-quality content
CGI’s value remains in that it is entirely human directed. Slower, and requiring a skilled individual for creation, the end results meet a much higher standard of production. When a visual needs to align perfectly with brand guidelines and meet exact specifications, CGI is the ideal choice.
Customisability: CGI allows full control over every aspect of an image’s creation, from lighting and shadows to colours and textures, ensuring the final product is created with precision and accuracy.
Photorealistic detail: It wasn’t too long ago that the industry was pitting photography against CGI and analysing the photorealism of the latter. Advanced CGI tools can now create hyper-realistic images that are visually indistinguishable from photographs. This level of detail is essential for industries where visual accuracy impacts brand perception and barriers to purchase, such as in the luxury goods and home decor markets.
Consistency: For campaigns that require a series of images to be rolled out across multiple channels, CGI allows for cohesive, consistent visuals that align seamlessly and provide consistency across multiple outlets, contributing to brand trust and a better consumer experience.
By leveraging CGI’s robust capabilities, brands can ensure that their final visuals meet quality standards and resonate with their audience on an emotional level, enhancing engagement and trust.
How AI and CGI can work together in your creative process
Rather than being alternatives to one another, AI and CGI should be complementary tools that enhance different stages of the creative process. In the example below, you can see the initial AI-generated image that has scamped out the room. It’s an illustration of what the client wants to include in the image. It identifies a direction, and gathers the products they want to showcase, in the sort of roomset they’re looking for.
In the second image, our CGI team has taken that scamp and worked this up into a detailed roomset image, bringing together accurate renders of the products to be included, and correcting the colourways and finishes. The image is aligned with the brand’s visual standards and works more cohesively with their existing imagery. Whereas the first image is conceptual, the second is a selling image and will be part of the customer’s purchasing journey either in print or through online marketing channels.
Is it worth investing in CGI when AI is improving so rapidly?
Whilst CGI does require a greater investment than AI-generated imagery, it is an investment in long-term brand quality. CGI visuals are consistently high quality, and aligned to your core identity, which is essential for establishing and maintaining brand trust and integrity. AI feels quicker and simpler, but it lacks credibility and that distinct brand look, which can severely hamper the consumer journey and produce barriers to purchase, especially for products with an inherent longevity and high price point such as furniture, fittings, and home decor products.
In a space where brands are constantly under pressure to innovate and stand out, AI and CGI can each play an important role. By using AI as a creative jumping off point, brands can explore bold ideas quickly and cost-effectively, but when it’s time to transform those concepts into polished, high-quality assets, CGI comes into play. Used together, they can help creative marketing teams bring their most ambitious ideas to life and create real impact with their brand and product visuals.