What seemed to be just a threat, or merely a phase of traditional advertising productions, no longer is: it has become reality.
A significant portion of productions has migrated to events, creators, and influencers, and AI has ceased to be a possibility to become a tool present in some stage of most advertising productions.
The advantage of accepting this scenario is that, by knowing it, we can navigate with calm, intelligence, determination, and resilience.
And because of this, I think this could be a very interesting moment for women in the audiovisual industry. Not because the market has become easier, but because we have always been trained to work in difficult scenarios.
Historically, women in production and direction have already had to deal with fewer resources, less space, and more questioning. And this has given us something powerful: adaptability, practical creativity, and production thinking. We learned to do a lot with little.
This is also why I view the apocalyptic discourse about generative AI “replacing filming” with a certain skepticism. Technology does not replace repertoire, and repertoire is not generated by a prompt.
AI can speed up processes, reduce costs, and open up new creative possibilities, which is great. But the difference between a generic piece of work and a memorable one remains human.
More than ever, individual repertoire will be decisive. And repertoire is not a reel. Repertoire is the experiences you have lived, the places you have frequented, the people you have met, the films you have seen, the streets you have walked, the stories you have heard. Repertoire is your life.
The tendency is that, the more technology standardizes certain images and formats, the greater the demand for authenticity becomes.
Authenticity is not born from a homogeneous place; it is born from a diversity of experiences, different cultural backgrounds, and teams with distinct perspectives.
Authenticity is born from the dialogue between direction, agency, and client. Advertising has never been an individual job. And in this new scenario, the collective process becomes even more important.
Obviously, craft needs to be present, and craft is not always the plastically perfect image, but rather the image serving the idea.
In the same way that female leadership is essential for real changes in politics and society, female direction can play an important role in the evolution of advertising content.
