Ask any creative agency about their business strategy these days and chances are artificial intelligence will feature at one point or another. For many agencies, generative AI tools such as Midjourney and ChatGPT are fast becoming a vital part of the creative development process, automation assistants are being used to minimise the time creatives have to spend on more menial tasks, and the technology has even found its way into fully fledged (albeit PR driven) campaigns such as Rethink’s Draw Ketchup stunt for Heinz.

As AI has increasingly pervaded the creative industries, there’s also been a surge of new agencies that are putting the technology at the heart of their offerings. One example of this is Fred & Farid spinoff Aimagination, which officially launched in January and describes itself as “global AI production studio tailor-made for the advertising industry”.

Headed up by Fred & Farid co-founder Frédéric Raillard, the idea for the studio was born after he went to see an AI art exhibition of the same name organised by one of his partners in Shanghai. “I could see really interesting visuals but those visuals were showing a complete lack of understanding of what brands needed. And on the other side, we had advertising talents who understood brand platform but had a complete fear about prompting and this world of AI. So I thought, we need to create a culture where we have these two things together,” he tells CR.