Embracing AI in design: Top 3 tips from Creative Studio Lead at Virgin Australia

Generative AI is not a replacement for creatives, but a tool to fuel innovation and elevate creative outputs. This is the philosophy championed by Zubair Khatry, Creative Studio Lead at Virgin Australia.

In his role, Zubair wears many hats, from operations, creative strategy, project management and design, to leading a team of designers, all while ensuring they perform at their best.

We sat down with Zubair to hear his insights on the role of AI in design and how it’s transforming the creative process. Here are the three main takeaways from the conversation.

1. Overcome the fear of AI

Often, there is a fear associated with AI, with some designers worrying that it may replace their jobs.

Zubair encourages his team to see it as a tool that enables them to do their job better. It’s about finding the opportunities where generative AI can be beneficial, such as in ideation or for production at scale.

Encouraging designers to get hands on and experiment with the tools as they become available helps alleviate these fears and show how design work can be amplified.

2. Empower designers to hone their craft

Beyond efficiency, Zubair shares how generative AI empowers design teams to deliver better work. He encourages designers to see generative AI as one of the tools that will help them fill their skill gaps or gain knowledge they don’t currently have.

By automating mundane tasks, designers can now devote more time to their best skillset - their creativity.

3. Facilitate self-serve options

The demand for content is rapidly growing, and small design teams are increasingly expected to quickly get hundreds of iterations of assets out the door.

With Adobe Express, Zubair and his team have facilitated self-serve options. By setting up templates, other internal teams to jump in the tools themselves and create on-brand assets, effectively expanding the design capabilities across the organisation.

This approach has allowed the design team to work on bigger, more meaningful projects while maintaining a top layer of quality control.

Looking ahead

Zubair and his team have been putting these tips into practice, adopting generative AI tools like Adobe Firefly, integrated in Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Express, into daily operations.

The future looks promising, with generative AI advancement and other technologies opening up even more possibilities for innovation and creativity in design.

Find more creative inspiration and discover the power of generative AI to easily create compelling on-brand content with Adobe Express for Enterprise.