#10 Minds & Machines: Integrating GenAI into your copywriting workflow, animating photos + Claude Artifacts
Plus, more new AI video tools + pen & paper prompts
An artist crafted this illustration while I sat on the Conversations on AI panel at Adobe London on 13 June. How cool is that?
Hello,
I hope all is good with you ☀️
This week, I’m covering a mix of things in this newsletter and trying out some new elements.
You’ll find my first mini tutorial, a 5-step guide – and some nice examples of the human + AI combo. Let me know what you think.
On the subject of human and AI, I did a talk last week at the Collaborate Conference in Bristol. You can probably guess the topic: human + AI collaboration! It was a fab event and I met some lovely people.
Two days before this, I hosted my Writing in the Woods women’s circle to celebrate the summer solstice. You’ll find some of the writing prompts below.
And what about this week? Well, I ran my first AI Bootcamp for the DMA. And I’m delivering a session on AI-assisted copywriting to an international brand this morning. Exciting.
Those are the main headlines. So, shall we crack on?
What’s inside this edition:
🤖 AI News and Views
Two brilliant ad examples of AI + human creativity
5 steps to add GenAI tools into your copywriting workflow
Claude’s new upgrades and Artifacts feature
Mini Tutorial: How to animate a still image using Runway
New video tools
💛 The Human Element
The power of pen and paper
Two journaling prompts to try
🤖 AI News & Views
AI tools, techniques and discoveries to help you with your content creation
Human + AI combo that gave me goosebumps
Yep, I get excited about advertising.
As I worked as a Creative in agencies for 18 years, I’ve always been inspired by the award winners at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.
The 2024 festival has just closed and, this year, two of the Grand Prix award-winning campaigns featured AI.
For me, these campaigns show us that AI technology isn’t all about productivity and saving time. It can also take our creative thinking to places that simply wouldn’t have been possible before. YES!
1. Human creativity + deepfake technology
This is the one that gave me goosebumps. The campaign from Orange France, which highlights gender bias in football, got loads of traction when it was released in July last year. Now the Cannes Lions award has brought it back to our attention. And rightly so.
If you haven’t seen it (or even if you have), take a look.
2. Human creativity + machine learning
I love this idea. Using machine learning, Pedigree was able to take dog adoption ads to a whole new level. Nice.
5 steps to add AI into your copywriting workflow
Image generated on Midjourney
I’ve been asked this question a couple of times lately: “How do you start integrating GenAI into your copywriting workflow? “
So I’ve created a quick 5-step guide. Here it is:
Step 1: Map your current workflow
Map out your whole copywriting process from the first ideas to the final draft.
Note down the jobs that are particularly repetitive, time-sapping, or draining.
Think about the ways AI could lend a hand with these tasks. Perhaps it’s coming up with content ideas, suggesting blog headlines or crafting sales emails.
Step 2: Choose your GenAI writing tool
There are loads of AI writing tools from Jasper to Gemini and ChatGPT to Claude. I have a soft spot for Claude. The newest model is the best it’s been and it’s free (see below).
To start with, pick one tool that works for you (they all have their unique plus points). Then get to know that tool well.
Step 3: Experiment with some simple tasks
Kick off with simple tasks, like generating headlines. Or ask your AI model to help with research. Think: summarising articles or suggesting new content themes.
Gradually explore the tool's features and play with the possibilities.
Step 4: Start adding GenAI into your process
After experimenting, try weaving GenAI tools into specific parts of your process.
When that’s nailed down, explore some of the other tasks you mapped out in step one.
Get to know when GenAI tools can help you – and when it’s best to give them a miss altogether.
Step 5. Apply your human creativity and judgment at every step
Add your problem-solving skills, critical thinking and creativity at each step.
Spend time crafting your prompts. Use your expertise to fact-check, sense check and ensure the content hits your objectives. Then polish your output, adding storytelling, craft and your humanness.
Let me know if that’s helpful (or not).
Claude’s upgrade and new Artifacts feature
Source: Anthropic on YouTube
The battle of the chatbots continues. This time it's Claude getting the attention.
On Friday, Anthropic revealed its newest model, Claude 3.5 Sonnet. It seems pretty impressive so far, offering up new features and improved functionality to everyone.
In terms of performance, you can expect:
Improved responses - it has a stronger grasp of “nuance, humour and complex instructions”.
Better visual results - it’s better at creating charts/graphs or transcribing hand-written notes. Anthropic called it: “our strongest vision model yet”.
Faster responses - How much faster? Well, according to Anthropic, “Claude 3.5 Sonnet operates at twice the speed of Claude 3 Opus” (Claude’s top-tier model).
New feature: Artifacts
Meet Artifacts. A new feature that gives you a separate preview pane while you’re creating in Claude.
For example, if you ask the model to create a text document, chart or graph, it appears in a separate window alongside your conversation.
I often summarise longer pieces of content, and it worked well for this. (Here’s one of my blogs as an example).
It generated super quickly and I could see the results alongside my prompt in the separate Artifacts window. ⬇️
Claude: The side-by-side view in the new Artifacts feature
The side-by-side view feels nicer for follow-up prompts. And it saves you from scrolling up and down through long conversations.
Want to try Artifacts? Here’s how to turn it on:
Click on your account icon (bottom left on the Claude home screen)
Click ‘Feature Preview’
Use the toggle to turn on Artifacts. That’s it.
Let me know what you think.
Mini tutorial: How to animate your photos in Runway
Image generated on Midjourney and animated in Runway. (Not true video quality – I made it into a gif to save space here)
Want a quick way to animate or add movement to your photos? Here’s how.
I demo this in a lot of my content creation workshops. And last week, I shared it at the Collaborate Conference too.
The results look nice and it’s fun to do. So, I thought I’d give you a quick tutorial here.
There are loads of GenAI tools on Runway, and you get free credits when you sign up. So, you can try it all out for free.
Apologies for not wearing the most professional clothes in the video. I was melting in my office!
3 new AI video models revealed in the last 3 weeks
I generated this on Dream Machine. Prompt: POV walking through Tokyo streets. Golden hour.
OpenAI’s Sora was unveiled back in February. It blew everyone away, and we’re now waiting for a public release. (I’m glad they’re not rushing the safety side of things.)
But over the last week or so, there’s been an influx of AI video tool reveals. And they’ve all been compared to Sora.
Here’s a quick rundown.
Dream Machine from Luma
Dream Machine, from San Francisco start-up Luma Labs, lets you generate photorealistic video and real-world motion. You can try it out for free now.
The demos look good. I’ve had mixed results so far, but haven’t spent lots of time on it yet.
Runway Gen3
Runway’s Gen2 is my go-to for AI-generated video and animating still images.
Last week, Runway unveiled Gen3 which, according to their site, “is a major improvement in fidelity, consistency, and motion over Gen-2”.
The demos look ace and I can’t wait to try it when it’s released.
In the meantime, you can generate videos and animate your images with Runway’s Gen2. See my mini tutorial above.
Kling AI
Announced on June 7th, this is a video generation model from Chinese company, Kuaishou. The company’s website says it can generate videos “up to two minutes long with a frame rate of 30fps and video resolution up to 1080p”.
You can see the demos here.
👁️ AI that caught my eye
My AI picks from across the web
Record companies, including Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, and Warner Records are taking AI music companies Suno and Udio to court. Why? Because allegedly, they’ve violated copyright in a big way.
Gemini has arrived in Gmail. See the latest here.
On Tuesday, OpenAI launched the ChatGPT Mac app for all.
Are Apple planning on integrating a Meta chatbot into their products? Some say possibly. Some say it’s a no.
💛 The Human Element
A celebration of our wild minds and creative souls
The power of pen and paper
Last week I hosted a Writing in the Woods Women’s Circle to celebrate the summer solstice. Sitting around this fire with pen, paper and wonderful women was a joy.
Every time I open my journal or sit in these circles, I’m reminded of the therapeutic power of writing.
Writing like this can help us to:
Organise what’s in our head
Get out what’s bothering us
Bring unconscious thoughts into the conscious
Express ourselves without judgement
Ignite new ideas and find ways to achieve our goals
There’s something else I love about all this. Whatever the prompts, I think the writing process surfaces whatever we need to know at that time. It’s pretty magical really.
Two writing prompts for you
At the circle, two particular prompts got interesting reactions and results. Here they are:
1) Free-writing exercise
Write for three minutes without taking your pen off the paper. Don’t overthink or worry about grammar, punctuation and spelling.
Prompt: “What I’d really like to say is…”
2) Three Good Things
This is a prompt I adapted from the Positive Psychology concept of Three Good Things, researched by Seligman, Steen, Park, & Peterson, 2005.
Prompt: Looking back over the first half of the year, write down three positive things you’ve experienced and reflect on the reasons why they happened.
The ‘why’ part is important here. It needs a bit of thought, but it took us to some interesting places.
Enjoy.
☀️ Upcoming Adventures
My upcoming public talks, workshops and events
I’m speaking at the FSB South Wales Small Business Conference, 4 September 2024 - details to follow
Autumn Equinox Women’s Circle: Writing in the Woods - finalising date
Yoga and Creativity Retreat: 20-22nd June 2025, bookings opening soon
10% off tickets for CopyCon. I’m excited to be speaking as part of CopyCon 2024. Give me a shout if you’d like 10% off tickets.