Mi3 interviewed us for an article on whether AI can, and should, replace humans throughout the creative supply chain. Below is a short excerpt from that article originally published on 3 September 2025.
There’s an argument to be had around whether injecting AI into the creative briefing and ideation process might actually help the industry. But in many ways, BetterBrief co-founders, Pieter-Paul von Weiler and Matt Davies, don’t believe it will – yet.
Question: Can AI write a good brief?
Pieter-Paul: “A brief is a set of choices. Good briefs summarise those choices and all the thinking a brand has been doing. We don’t believe AI is in a position yet to make those choices and write a brief for us – to an acceptable standard,” the pair tell Mi3.
Matt: “Who knows where we’re going to be in future, but at the moment, it can’t make choices for you. Good briefs still require decisions made by a skilful and trained marketer. However, AI can definitely be used to improve elements of the brief.”
Matt continues: “AI has to be used with the right intention. If standardisation is the intention, we’re going to have to be very careful to not produce more homogenous advertising that blends in the background – there’s already too much of that. If it’s used as a tool to crunch data, recognise flaws and inconsistencies in brief and creative work on the road to clearer, more concise choices that don’t just play it safe, then we’re all for it.”
Read the full article on Mi3 via this link: https://www.mi-3.com.au/02-09-2025/derivative-brief-accelerant-content-fuel-where-ai-creative-process-swinburne-uni
Matt Davies is the co-founder of BetterBriefs, an advisory and training business that helps marketers write better briefs and deliver more impactful ideas. A highly awarded former agency strategist, having worked at Clemenger BBDO, Design Bridge, Arnold Worldwide, AJF Partnership, as well as running his own agency.
Together with co-founder Pieter-Paul von Weiler, he wrote the BetterBriefs Project and The Best Way for a Client to Brief an Agency, a practical guide for marketers to improve the quality of briefs, co-authored by Mark Ritson and published in partnership with the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA). Matt (together with Pieter-Paul) also led the BetterIdeas Project, a global study exposing the poor state of the creative evaluation process. The study aims to improve the creative decision-making and evaluation practices and was launched in partnership with the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) and the IPA.