The Reason AI Ad Creative Is So Disappointing (With Alex Cooper)

The Andrew Faris Podcast · with Alex Cooper · August 15, 2025 · 48 min

Summary

This episode, featuring Alex Cooper, delves into the current limitations and disappointments of AI in generating ad creative for e-commerce. It highlights why many brands are finding AI-generated ads to be underwhelming and offers insights into the strategic pitfalls to avoid when integrating AI into their advertising efforts. For e-commerce operators, this discussion is crucial for setting realistic expectations and understanding how to truly leverage AI for creative development rather than relying on it as a magic bullet.

Key takeaways

• Andrew Faris's agency, AJFG, provides growth management services including cohort forecasting, Meta Ads media buying, and ad creative with full design and edit capabilities.
• Andrew Faris has a background scaling a bootstrapped brand from $0 to $20M, and as VP of Growth at Common Thread Collective working with brands like The North Face and TheraGun.
• The episode is likely to caution against over-reliance on AI for creative generation, stressing the need for human oversight and strategic input.
• Expect discussion on how to integrate AI effectively into your creative workflow to enhance rather than replace human creativity.
• The episode will probably touch on common mistakes brands make when trying to use AI for ad creative and offer solutions to overcome these.

Themes

Topics covered

Episode description

BEHIND THE SCENES STUDIOWork with the same Meta Ads creative production team that Andrew does with Behind The Scenes Studio, a More Staffing sister company: ⁠https://www.behindthescenes.studio/.RICHPANELCut your support costs by 30% and reduce tickets by 30%—guaranteed—with Richpanel's AI-first Customer Service Platform that will reduce costs, improve agent productivity & delight customers at http://www.richpanel.com/partners/ajf?utm_source=youtube.//This episode gets practical about AI and ad creative. Andrew Faris and Alex Cooper (Adcate) break down what’s actually working, why most AI ads still fall flat, and how operators can build a creative system that compounds.What you’ll learn:- AI as an amplifier, not a shortcut: why bad ideas stay bad, even with great models—and how to surface signal from 20+ AI-generated options instead of shipping noise.- Context engineering OVER prompt engineering: building brand-specific context documents and custom GPT/Claude projects (brand data + top performers + task-specific creative principles) to raise hit rate across headlines, hooks, scripts, and iterations.- Operationalized knowledge: treating your agency/org as “operationalized knowledge,” then encoding that knowledge into AI so strategy scales without diluting quality.- Process over novelty: frameworks like AI Days and moonshot briefs to test new tools (VO3, image/video gen, research apps) without derailing production.- Where VO3 fits now: using intentionally unrealistic visuals for hooks and pattern breaks while keeping workflows realistic for speed and cost.- Tool overload triage: how to evaluate new AI releases against business o

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Frequently asked about this episode

What does this episode say about paid acquisition?

Andrew Faris's agency, AJFG, provides growth management services including cohort forecasting, Meta Ads media buying, and ad creative with full design and edit capabilities.

What does this episode say about ai & automation?

Andrew Faris has a background scaling a bootstrapped brand from $0 to $20M, and as VP of Growth at Common Thread Collective working with brands like The North Face and TheraGun.

What does this episode say about brand & content?

The episode is likely to caution against over-reliance on AI for creative generation, stressing the need for human oversight and strategic input.

What does this episode say about paid acquisition?

Expect discussion on how to integrate AI effectively into your creative workflow to enhance rather than replace human creativity.

What does this episode say about paid acquisition?

The episode will probably touch on common mistakes brands make when trying to use AI for ad creative and offer solutions to overcome these.

Listen

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