How to utilise AI to improve your practice, from an expert
AI won't replace your creativity, but it could change your workflow.
By Moin Roberts-Islam, a fashion-tech consultant, innovator and mentor with a decade of experience working at the intersection of technology and fashion.
If you’re studying or starting out in a creative field at the moment, it might feel like you’re entering an industry that’s already in the middle of an AI panic. Image generators that can spit out “editorial” style shoots, AI models fronting brand campaigns, tools promising to design logos, write copy and mix tracks in a few clicks.
The most common narratives tend to sit at two extremes: either “AI will take all the creative jobs” or “AI will magically make everything effortless.” Neither is very helpful when you’re just trying to build a portfolio, pay rent, and make work that you’re proud of.
Beneath the hype, AI is basically very fast pattern‑matching. Think of this as “convergent thinking” – where there is a “correct” answer and it can be reached by sifting through a mountain of information and sources (like finding one particular grain of sand inside a sandbox), iterating on a response until you get one that fits best. It’s good at:
Generating lots of options quickly;
Summarising and organising messy information;
Mimicking patterns it has seen before.
However, it struggles with tasks that need “divergent thinking”: thinking outside the box, finding an answer that does not already exist within the sandbox. Starting from a solitary idea and coming up with a creative response, or acting on a feeling or personal take in response to a bit of information, or indeed anything where the answer is a bit of a grey area. It’s not so good at:
Context and nuance;
Understanding bodies, culture, politics;
Having taste.
This is where you come in. The most interesting studios and creatives will use AI less as a creative replacement and more as a new tool within their armoury – like using Photoshop, 3D software, or a very eager (but obsessively focused) intern.
What we’ve laid out below isn’t a list of tricks to make “AI‑looking work”. It’s 10 ways to use AI to augment your practice – to research better, prototype faster, protect your time, and make your labour more visible – while keeping ethics, authorship and uniqueness at the centre.
Before you open another AI tab: here are four ground rules.