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 β, 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 β 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.

Effective on 1 April, AI-CD β will be assigned as a creative director to client accounts and will provide creative direction for commercials as per creative briefs.

Until now, the production of commercials has been dependent on the intangible experience and know-how of human creators.

With the AI-CD β, it will become possible to provide clients with work produced through logic-based creative direction grounded on past TV commercial data.

In addition to giving creative direction for commercials, the AI-CD β will also evaluate and gain learnings from results after the commercials have aired, to improve precision for future projects.

President & CEO of McCann Japan Yasuyuki Katagi said: “Artificial intelligence is already being used to create a wide variety of entertainment, including music, movies, and TV drama, so we’re very enthusiastic about the potential of AI-CD ß for the future of ad creation. The whole company is 100 percent on board to support the development of our A.I. employee.”

Shun Matsuzaka, creative planner at McCann Japan and the founder of McCANN MILLENNIALS, added: “Our team didn’t have a creative director, so we thought, why not create one ourselves with artificial intelligence? That’s how the Creative Genome Project got started.

"Our hope is for our A.I. creative director to work on many projects, gain experience, and to grow into a world-class creative director that will leave a mark in the advertising industry.”