Generative AI is changing how we do things, and not in a subtle way. In fact, it’s estimated that 30% of outbound marketing from enterprises will be artificially generated by 2025. 

We’ve all heard of Chat GPT and DALL-E. All of a sudden, we no longer need to rely on technical skills or worry about production costs. Generative AI has completely reinvented the wheel of how we edit, search, create and store digital content.  

There’s a lot of uncertainty around what generative AI can do, and what it can take away. But the way DAM works with AI is different, we know we need it. And we know it can change how businesses market themselves for the better.  

All we need to do is understand it a little more.  

Digital asset management acts as a custodian for digital assets, and generative AI plays a crucial role in ensuring businesses can store, edit and market their products.  

Here’s why businesses shouldn’t be scared of what generative AI can take away and how it can elevate your brand’s offering.  

What Is Generative AI?

Generative AI is a type of artificial intelligence that uses data sets and algorithms to generate digital content. We can use it to create content such as text, imagery, audio or synthetic data, in response to a written prompt. 

Advances in large language models (or LLMs) are now allowing generative AI to write songs, create AI art and photorealistic images or deep fakes from a simple prompt. For example, you can now ask a generative AI tool to create unique images on demand, like an astronaut riding a horse in space. 

We’ve been anticipating the power of AI for many years now, but it’s full potential is still in its infancy.  

Generative AI also creates opportunities for businesses to satisfy customer needs and demands for personalised, fast-tracked content. 

But this needs to be done intelligently.  

For example, say a business needs to use masses of digital assets. With DAM, each asset has metadata attached to it to describe it. This metadata is needed to train the generative AI models to create messaging and visuals specific to your business.  

In short, we can rely on generative AI to give us exactly what we need it to, as long as we train it the right way.  

What’s The Difference Between Generative AI & AI?

AI (or artificial intelligence) is an all-encompassing term referring to any technology that replicates intelligent human behaviour, such as Siri and chatbots. It helps us better detect patterns and understand and interpret data that already exists.  

Generative AI, on the other hand, is a branch of AI that relies on a prompt to create something entirely new, in the form of text, imagery – you name it. It is trained using existing data and ‘learns’ how to generate something similar, yet unique, as a response. 

This is where DAM comes into play.  

The Power Of Generative AI & DAM

The world is rapidly moving towards highly personalised, AI generated content. In fact, Gartner anticipates that by 2025, generative AI will account for 10% of all data produced.  

But what many don’t realise, is that to create entirely new digital assets, generative AI must draw upon a library of pre-existing raw materials, like images, articles or social media posts. Yet, copyright or ethical issues can quickly arise if these raw materials are incorrect or have not been cleared for commercial use.  

To safeguard against copyright or moral issues with artificially generated content, users need to know where the AI is sourcing its raw materials from, and that they’re copyright compliant. 

That’s why integrating generative AI with a DAM solution like Collaboro is the answer.   

DAM acts as a single source of truth for your entire library of digital assets, ensuring they’re correctly tagged and accessible at all times. DAM applies intricate metadata to describe each asset, training the generative AI models to create messaging and visuals that align with your brand’s style and tone of voice. 

Features like expiry dates and passwords also ensure that the assets available are copyright compliant and market-ready.  

DAM systems equipped with generative AI features are an essential component of the digital transformations of organisations. They increase the lifespan and value of existing assets and automate processes on a large scale, driving efficiencies and helping marketers get assets to market faster than ever before.   

What Does A DAM & Generative AI Integration Look Like?

Digital asset management (or DAM) is a powerful software that businesses leverage to manage their digital content, such as images, documents, videos or audio files. DAM creates a single, central library for your digital assets, ensuring they’re always easily searchable, shareable and compliant.  

Here’s how DAM and Generative AI work together to empower its users:  

1. They Fast-Track Content Generation

Integrating generative AI into your DAM solution empowers any team member to easily generate rich, unique branded content from scratch. For example, Movio’s ability to create engaging videos with human-like avatars from a simple prompt.  

Creative or commercial skills in Photoshop or InDesign are no longer necessary to produce market-ready content. With generative AI, implementing branding styles, adjusting sentiment, recasting models and creating videos or images at scale is possible within seconds.  

A generative AI and DAM integration also makes it fast and easy to A/B test various backgrounds, text overlays, models and props before a campaign is put to market. This not only saves your teams countless hours creating multiple different visuals, but saves a significant chunk of money from the marketing budget that can now be utilised in other areas.  

2. Instantaneous Editing

Picture this, your business decides to do a rebrand. How much time and money would it take you to reshoot, recast or re-edit images to align with the new brands colours, logo and sentiment? 

With DAM and generative AI, adjustments take place within the DAM itself in a matter of seconds. Users instruct the DAM with a simple prompt like “change the background of this image to an underwater scene” to rapidly create an entirely new image without hours removing backgrounds, cropping and adjusting lighting. 

With these capabilities at their fingertips, employees easily repurpose existing assets to meet different objectives, new markets or replace the entire product or subject altogether. This significantly extends the lifespan of your assets while saving your creative team countless hours of work. 

3. Rapid Asset Search & Discovery

According to McKinsey, AI can cut the time employees spend on menial tasks by up to 40%. One of the most notable being cutting down the hours spent searching for assets.  

A DAM with generative AI allows you to locate any digital asset in your DAM without the need to remember file names or locations. Users easily search through your entire digital asset library using natural language, abstract phrases and even cultural references.  

So, instead of commissioning a video or purchasing a stock image, generative AI powered search allows you to discover the perfect digital asset that may already exist in your DAM library. For example, generative AI can analyse the subject matter of an asset, like a palm tree on a beach, and suggest similar assets, simplifying the process of retrieving related content. 

Even better, if the image style you’re after doesn’t exist in your library, prompt the generative AI to create one for you in a matter of seconds. This empowers your employees to search for existing content before commissioning new assets – saving you time and money from the marketing budget.