Late last year, a tale of two competing AI visions emerged in advertising and brand campaigns. On one side, Google released its first commercial made entirely using AI, depicting a turkey planning a holiday getaway. They were joined by other major brands — Coca-Cola and Lexus, to name a few — flexing their generative AI creative muscle through the holiday season. Yet, OpenAI forged a very different path. They kicked off ChatGPT's first major ad campaign with a series of commercials shot on 35mm film that showcased very human-centric use cases for their chatbot — harkening towards indie lo-fi vs. techno-futurism. At the same time, brands like Lacoste and Porsche went a decidedly handmade direction, with luscious animations that trumpeted artistic craft.
While both directions made their own poignant statements, something about the non-AI outputs stood out as a harbinger of something larger at play. In a world awash with generative AI art, a curious thing is happening: the human touch is becoming a luxury.
It appears to be part of a growing cultural countercurrent — one that we've been tracking from our agency, Man of the World (MOW). As mass-produced and AI-generated designs proliferate, there's a rising desire to return to analog design, brand, and marketing outputs resplendent with human imperfection.
Betting on Analog Allure
In the New York Times' 10 Predictions for Life in 2026, the very first forecast was about deceleration: dumb phones, they suggested, would become status symbols. This shot across the bow set up a nostalgic creative direction for the year.
It's telling that OpenAI, one of the most advanced companies of our time, chose human-centric storytelling and retro visuals for its first scaled brand platform campaign for ChatGPT.
Announcing the campaign on LinkedIn, OpenAI CMO Kate Rouch noted, "Over 700 million people around the world now use ChatGPT each week. The campaign celebrates them. Our message is really simple: we want to spotlight how people are already using ChatGPT in their daily lives — so others feel inspired to explore new ways it might help them too."
That decision followed the company's first paid advertising appearance during the Super Bowl last year, which featured a restrained, digital-minimalist aesthetic that deliberately kept AI itself out of the foreground. When the spot aired, Rouch told The Verge, "We want the message to feel relevant to the audience watching the Super Bowl — tens of millions of people, many of whom have little familiarity with AI."
The response was clear. Rather than escalating spectacle, OpenAI continues to emphasize everyday humanity over technical display. That same philosophy carried into Frontier Builders, a business-focused extension of the campaign released in January 2026. It highlights companies built on OpenAI using restrained, black-and-white photography as its visual anchor. Even with their 60-second placement for Super Bowl LX, the company extended this approach with their You Can Just Build Things — reinforcing a pattern where AI's presence is felt through people.
The Prestige of the Human Hand
Why such a buzz over the analog creative? There's a bit of AI "sameness" fatigue setting in, at least when it comes to creative expression.
Visit Hermès's newly revamped website, and you won't be met with the hyper-polished 3D renderings or AI-generated graphics. Instead, you'll find old-school imagery from zine-like scrapbook cutouts to line-etching-style illustrations. A series of hand-drawn, animated seascapes — whimsically combining Hermès products with dolphins, shells, waves, and other oceanic motifs — took the internet by storm. These illustrations, resplendent with uneven ink lines and textured paper grain backgrounds, are by French artist Linda Merad. Her old-school pen-and-ink drawings give the site a tactile, human charm, creating playful scenes that feel like they came straight out of a sketchbook. In an age of flawless digital outputs, these deliberate imperfections feel almost revelatory, and a statement underscoring a broader movement gaining momentum.
So, what are the creators who are deeply immersed within AI-native circles saying? Dave Clark, Co-founder and Chief Creative Officer, Promise Advanced Imagination, sees a growing ability to create and design in retro forms — even in AI-generated works. Coming from a traditional advertising and filmmaking background, as well as an early adopter of generative tools, Clark's enjoying this aperture opening. "As GenAI tools evolve to give artists the flexibility to add more texture and patina, they make it possible to approach certain stories with a more nostalgic sensibility, when that's what the narrative calls for."
Google's DeepMind just released a compelling animated short Dear Upstairs Neighbors, which was previewed at the 2026 Sundance Institute Film Festival in Park City, Utah. Developed by Pixar alumni Connie He and Márcia Mayer, the film scaled hand-painted canvases and 2D line animations with complex AI-integrated workflows — creating a final product that maintained its handmade feel.
A New Creative Equilibrium
The pendulum swing toward hand-crafted creativity and retro design sensibilities in the AI era suggests we're searching for a new equilibrium. The last few years brought an explosion of AI-generated art, writing, and design — raising both excitement and existential dread among creatives. Now, a kind of correction is underway that we don't believe is a creative AI rejection, but instead a rebalancing. There's even early news about OpenAI creating a new social network that requires proof-of-human biometrics to join — another tell that authenticity and human presence are becoming increasingly valuable as AI output scales.
Economically, we may see a split landscape: many businesses will churn out AI-generated content for efficiency's sake — which doesn't discount its ability to enhance new forms of creativity — but there will also be a thriving market for the human and the handmade. No matter the approach, authenticity becomes a premium commodity.
Whether it's marketing how AI can become less visible in everyday use or luxury brands elevating hand-made craft, this isn't an isolated creative decision — it's part of a broader cultural shift. The message is that human creativity isn't obsolete; it's more important than ever. In fact, the very ubiquity of AI outputs may end up enhancing the value of genuinely human-made works, simply by contrast.
In all likelihood, the future of art and design will not be a zero-sum game of AI vs. human, but a continuum where each project finds its right balance.
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