Welcome to the debut episode of Working Overtime! In these bi-weekly episodes, June, Isaac, and Karen dissect creative advice--and sometimes offer it to listeners and each other. This week, they discuss a piece of advice from cartoonist Alison Bechdel, who argues that avoiding the Internet every once in a while can lead to more focus and productivity. In the discussion, the hosts assess whether the internet helps or hurts their creative work and share some strategies for logging off when necessary. Do you have a piece of creative advice to share?

McCann Erickson Japan is upping its artificial intelligence game by creating and naming the world's first artificial intelligence (AI) creative director. Named AI-CD?, the AI bot was developed through the "Creative Genome Project", one of the first projects undertaken by McCANN MILLENNIALS, an innovative taskforce that was launched last September by members of the agency's millennial generation. AI-CD? is artificial intelligence that is able to give creative direction for commercials. To develop the A.I., the MILLENNIALS team deconstructed, analysed and tagged a wide range of TV commercials, including the winners of the All Japan Radio & Television Commercial Confederation's annual CM Festival (ACC CM Festival) awards for the past 10 years. The A.I. is designed to mine the Festival's database and creatively direct the optimal commercial for any given product or message.

Staffers at McCann Erickson Japan in Tokyo recently met their new colleague: AI-CD? The concept was sparked by an idea at South by Southwest, and data-driven success stories -- including Netflix's and Buzzfeed's approaches in creating targeted original content -- helped to trigger the development of AI-CD beta. To set AI-CD beta apart as an advertising prodigy (albeit, a robotic one), it initially analyzed and categorized the winners of the All Japan Radio & Television Commercial Confederation annual CM Festival for the past 10 years, which celebrates creative excellence in TV advertising in Japan. Depending on the creative challenge, it mines patterns including how weather, location or current events have affected an existing campaign, or how related commercials have performed historically on YouTube. This logic-based direction then results in a targeted strategy for a product or brand, which is actually written out using a brush attached to a robotic arm.

McCann Erickson Japan is taking artificial intelligence to the next level, creating and appointing the world's first robot creative director. The robot, called AI-CD?, will be assigned as a creative director to client accounts and will provide creative direction for commercials. It will also evaluate and gain learnings from results after commercials have aired to ensure it improves for future projects. AI-CD? was developed through a new taskforce in the agency, McCann Millennials, a group of staff members born between 1980 and 2000 who apparently care not for the future of their own careers, or the possible rising of the machines à la The Matrix. The robot is able to give creative direction for commercials, drawing from a database of tagged and analysed TV commercials from the past 10 years of winners of the All Japan Radio & Television Commercial Confederation's annual CM Festival (ACC CM Festival).

In 2018, artificial intelligence expert Kai-Fu Lee estimated that AI and automation would take over half of human work in 15 years. The pandemic has likely accelerated that timeline significantly. Since the virus struck, "I haven't talked to anyone who's not doing automation as a way to become more competitive, and more resilient," IDC analyst Maureen Fleming told Wired. Lee also predicted that creative jobs would survive automation because creativity is a uniquely human trait that no algorithm can replace. And the pandemic is accelerating the importance of creativity, too. For instance, with in-person photo shoots largely impossible, companies like Ben & Jerry's and Lowe's are using 3D rendering tools to create assets for marketing campaigns and e-commerce sites that are even more vital now that foot traffic to brick-and-mortar stores is way down.