As I experimented with the new ChatGPT 4o imaging engine and shared the visuals with my students at NTU, I felt excitement, wonder, and sadness all at the same time. A nuclear bomb has detonated in the heart of marketing and design, and I am not sure what the fallout will be.
Here, I used my sketch of a man sitting at the edge of a cliff, overlooking mountains and a river while the sun rays beam through the clouds. Previously, I had to rely on Midjourney and Adobe Firefly to “AI” the sketch into proper artwork. Now, ChatGPT can do the job. I converted my sketch into an oil painting and a children storybook watercolor piece. Then I went with a Mayan theme and converted it into embroidery and a 3D diorama.
The results are staggering. I started my Gen AI journey in 2022 with AI imaging, and back then, it was a struggle to get Stable Diffusion to follow any prompt faithfully. In less than 3 years, ChatGPT has gone from churning out text to becoming a powerful visualisation machine for the brain.
The good news:
- Anyone can now communicate visually with flair and verve. You just need to go learn the keywords and phrases that can generate beautiful images for your needs. Eg. “isometric view”. This isn’t “prompt engineering”, but simply knowing the universal lingo of art. I already teach this concept in my AI workshops.
- Marketers can now do high-quality mockups or even final artwork at high speed. If you are a marketer and you still don’t know how to prompt for images because you think that’s not your job, welcome to 2025.
- I can stop seeing ugly AI images on LinkedIn.
The bad news (depending on your perspective):
- If you are in design, you must be at the top of the game with true artistic skills (i.e. the ability to draw well) and production skills, because Gen AI can fulfill the needs of most companies for artwork that does not need precision or accuracy.
- I don’t know if this will deter people from learning how to express their thoughts with drawings. That’s is an incredibly important process in creative thinking.
- Many AI imaging apps and startups will shut down in the next few months. They simply cannot compete with their primitive engines and amateurish results. I think Midjourney (which had a moat for the past year) is in deep trouble too but I’m continuing my subscription for now.
- Stock photo companies are also in danger of shutting down. Not that I’ve ever given them much money to begin with…
I have more examples of ChatGPT visuals which I will share over the coming days. You ain’t seen nuthin’ yet.