Let's be Honest, Copywriters are a Bunch of Thieving Little Sh*ts

And that’s okay. Because it’s precisely this magpie-like instinct… this predilection for hoarding, pilfering, and remixing existing ideas that make the best of us good at what we do.

Whether you’re the methodical type who treats every brief like a puzzle, or the chameleon-like empath who effortlessly slips into the audience’s shoes, or even the strategic operator who starts with the commercial end in mind, all of us copywriters share one universal trait: we are unrepentant creative kleptomaniacs.

Show me a copywriter who swears they’ve never “borrowed” inspiration, and I’ll show you someone who’s either lying or hasn’t written enough headlines to know better. Even the great David Ogilvy once admitted, “The good ideas are all taken.”

Which neatly segues into what I really want to talk about. Namely the greatest creative thief of them all… AI.

The Great Ideas Hoover

As AI looms large over the creative world like a giant black hole, sucking up every conceivable idea ever produced, the question isn’t whether it can be “creative”, but whether it can create in a way that matters.

As I understand it, AI relentlessly slices and dices everything that crosses its path into digestible data. This digital mulch is then algorithmically remixed, reengineered, and reconstituted to predict ‘new’ ideas (please note, I use the word ‘new’ very loosely).

One could even be tempted to argue that it’s a more efficient version of what we creative types have been doing all along. But it’s not really. Simply because AI has never actually lived.

A lot of our creative instincts, namely the choices we make, the turns of phrase that feel right, and the weird, wonderful leaps of imagination… are all shaped by our own lived experiences. Basically, all the stuff that’s messy, unstructured, and deeply personal.

It’s childhood memories.

It’s painful heartbreaks.

It’s mundane Monday afternoons.

It’s an inside joke.

It’s what you overheard on the tube in 2007.

Whether consciously or subconsciously, we use this magic fairy dust to add a unique layer of authentic texture to our creative imaginings.

AI doesn’t have that ability.

Uneasy? Yes. Excited? Also Yes.

Don't get me wrong. I AM genuinely fascinated by AI (generative AI to be specific). More importantly, I want it to succeed because I’m curious about what can be. Plus, I’m convinced that with this kind of AI, we’re standing on the threshold of the next industrial revolution.

Nonetheless, there’s a little voice inside that’s still a bit iffy about it all.

So, where better to look for clarity than in the opinions of my fellow writers? Perhaps there’s a general consensus out there; a universal sentiment I could sidle up to in the quest for a more fully-formed opinion on the matter.

Or so I thought…

A quick scroll through LinkedIn and Reddit in search of reasonable, nuanced and balanced opinions felt more like stumbling into a pub brawl with no clear winners. AI is either "the death of creativity" or "its greatest revolution", depending on who’s shouting loudest. Absolutely not a single trace of consensus rose to the surface. Just noise. But buried in the fracas, one thing stood out: no one truly knows what’s coming next.

So I decided to change tack. Instead of sifting through an online shouting match, I thought: what if I could mull on the opinions of three well-regarded, successful creatives? Highly successful creatives, who are also too established to merely fling half-baked opinions/rants into the public domain. Surely, each of them would have thought quite deeply about the matter, if only to avoid looking like a complete lemon in their next big interview. 

John Hegarty: The Creative Purist

Sir John Hegarty has built a career on the power of originality, disruption, and fearless creativity. His take on AI? It’s a clever tool, sure. But it fundamentally lacks the one thing that makes creativity special: imagination.

In a recent podcast, he outlines a very simple argument: AI is a remix machine. It chews up the past, spits out a version of what’s already been done, and lacks the gut-driven, illogical, leap-in-the-dark magic that makes creativity what it is.

He believes that creativity isn’t just about putting words in the right order. It’s about taste, curation, and judgment. It's about knowing which ideas to throw away and which ones to nurture. AI doesn’t know the difference. It scoops up everything, whether it's a brilliant insight or absolute garbage. Everything is ingested in equal measure and then spat out again without understanding what makes something good.

Despite his obvious scepticism, I don't think Hegarty is actually dismissing AI outright. He does in fact see its potential as a useful tool. Ultimately for him, AI is merely a "starting point" on the creative journey, and never a replacement for real creative instinct. Humans are still needed to inject that special ingredient, to hone and craft the final item, so that it’s truly exciting and disruptive.

Charlie Brooker: The Cynical Realist

If anyone was going to call AI-generated creativity out for being a hollow imitation, it was always going to be Charlie Brooker. The man behind Black Mirror (a show dedicated to skewering our tech-driven future) recently experimented with ChatGPT to generate a script for the show.

His verdict? Absolute crap.

Brooker’s issue with AI isn’t that it can’t write – it obviously can – but that it doesn’t know what it’s writing. It’s all pattern-matching, not thinking. AI-generated content is a photocopy of a photocopy. In other words, technically coherent, but progressively more degraded and soulless the more it’s used.

Interestingly, Brooker has also compared AI tools for writing to Adobe Photoshop for artists: potentially useful but never a replacement for human instinct. While AI might assist the creative process, it can’t replicate the nuanced understanding of irony, subtext, or emotional depth that human writers bring to their work.

And honestly, I kind of feel the same way. Take this award-winning BIC pen ad from the early noughties.

I tried a little experiment. I asked ChatGPT to review it and give me an opinion about whether it thought it was a good or bad ad (remember this ad has won several gongs in the past, including Cannes Lions, D&AD, One Show to name just a few).

On the whole, ChatGPT’s response was positive. It acknowledged that the ad was clever and engaging. However, it also said that “Adding a subtle tagline could make it even stronger”. No human copywriter on God’s green Earth, upon seeing this ad for the first time would ever suggest that! Unfortunately, AI does not share the same instinctive ability humans have to discern the quality of such a perfectly formed ad. Which just reinforces Brooker’s point about its inability to handle nuance.

David Droga: The Pragmatic Optimist

"And in the other corner, we have David Droga!" 

Unlike, Hegarty or Brooker, Droga doesn’t flinch when it comes to AI. And why should he? He’s the CEO of Song – an Accenture-built agency that sees technology as fundamental to marketing’s evolution. So naturally, he does not see AI as a threat. In fact it’s quite obvious in this piece for Fast Company, he’s really not that interested in engaging in a moral debate:

"I feel like people like to pit technology and creativity against each other, and it’s the exact opposite of that."

For Droga, the real mistake isn’t AI itself. It’s the industry’s knee-jerk reaction to it. The fear. The defensiveness. The assumption is that AI is an existential threat, rather than a tool that could elevate the work.

That said, he still sees a role for human creativity. AI might be able to generate endless variations of ad copy, but it can’t decide which one is the most interesting, the most provocative, the most human.

Droga’s advice? The best creative people won’t just use AI, they’ll curate it, direct it, and push it beyond its limitations. In other words, the future belongs to those who use AI as a tool, not as a crutch.

I have to say, this is quite a pragmatic view of AI’s role in the creative life of a copywriter. My only watch-out: don’t let the tail wag the dog. Always remember, AI is the ‘pen’ and not the ‘poet’.

So, There You Have It!

Three perspectives, all on one continuum, crystallising one thought:

AI isn't the enemy, but neither is it the answer.

It’s just another tool in the kit. A powerful one, sure. A disruptive one, definitely. But a tool nonetheless, to be wielded wisely. In fact, just as Photoshop didn’t replace designers, or calculators didn’t replace accountants, I don’t think AI will truly replace copywriters.

Remember, we’re magpies. We’re expert thieves. As time will prove, we’ll learn to exploit AI as an all-you-can-eat Ali Baba’s Cave of ideas, thought starters and catalysts.

Until then, always remember – AI can only take you so far. Adding the final flourish, the secret sauce, the x-factor…whatever you want to call it. That intangible spark that defines true creative genius? That will always be a job for us human magpies.