THE MYTH OF CHEAP AI AND WHAT IT’S TEACHING US ABOUT THE VALUE OF CRAFT AND CREATIVITY
Inside T-Recs (Avioma) — an AI film that explores and challenges the creative process, trust, and collaboration in the age of AI.
AI is everywhere now. But there’s still a question: are people creating with real intention, or just letting automation take over? Some creatives are trying to change that. They care about what we feed into AI and how we use it. Their goal is to make AI more thoughtful and to keep creativity human.
For the past two years, the creative industry has been caught in a strange paradox. AI has never been more powerful, more accessible, or more capable of reshaping how we tell stories. Yet the perception of its value has never been more skewed. Scroll through any social feed and you’ll find an endless stream of AI reels made by creators chasing views. Fast, flashy, and often impressive at first glance. The unintended side effect is that brands have started to believe that AI storytelling is easy, instant, and most dangerously, cheap.
There’s a frustrating misconception that AI has made creative work “easy” and “cheap,” as clients see short reels on socials from content creators trying to build a following. Clients want to jump on the wagon and make AI content, but with super low budgets. In reality, the cost of exceptional AI talent is rising fast, and the craft behind meaningful storytelling is far more complex.
The real goal here is to help clients and people around us understand that it’s not about AI, or how fast you can create. It’s about the power of creativity, the kind that creatives bring to the work.
Inside the industry, we know the truth is very different. Exceptional AI talent is getting more expensive, not less. High-quality output requires strategic thinking, cinematic craft, technical depth, narrative intelligence, and the coordination of teams who understand how to push the technology far past what a single prompt can achieve. AI is not replacing craft. It is amplifying the gap between work that merely looks good and work that genuinely moves people.
This idea became particularly clear during a recent TOML commission for the aviation sector. We had a brief to create an AI film, but with the familiar assumption that AI can do it quickly and cheaply. On paper, the budget didn’t really match the ambition required to create this film. We saw an opportunity here; instead of walking away, we treated it as an R&D co-investment.
A testing ground for what AI filmmaking can truly look like when you approach it with creative integrity instead of shortcuts. We built a hybrid production approach, co producing with Natalie, a BAFTA-winning filmmaker, with AI artists, concept designers, and our in-house team. We developed a creative process that really changed the way we create with AI. It was treated like a proper production, matching insights from filmmakers and DOPs, so the story had to make sense in the end, and every choice made in the set design, camera movement, or character work was intentional.
It wasn’t a production line; it was more like a laboratory — a place to push talent into new ways of making. Hours spent refining every scene and shaping how the story flows. We treated every camera move like a live shoot, building the visual language through testing, not presets. We documented the process not to justify the price, but to reveal the invisible layers that make work meaningful. And, when the client saw the final film, they immediately asked for more. More importantly, they finally understood what they were buying, not an AI model, not a tool, but orchestration.
Human vision guides machine capability. A team connecting the dots that AI alone can’t see. That moment built trust. And trust built value. And, the next project came with double the budget.
This is the real change we’re seeing. AI hasn’t lowered standards; it’s made them higher. It has pushed the expectations for what creative leaders must do: educate clients, articulate processes, and show the strategic value behind the craft. Because if we don’t reclaim the narrative, someone else will, and the work will lose its value. Thus, the industry risks being flattened into commodity thinking.
It’s frustrating when people say RIP designers. No one’s dying — things are just changing. We’ve got smarter tools now, and we’re evolving with them. What’s valuable and what’s not is being redefined. We just need a bit more curiosity, rather than panic and jumping to big conclusions.
AI is not a creative shortcut. It is an amplifier of intent. It rewards clarity, experimentation, and collaboration. It punishes laziness. It exposes messy thinking. And it makes the difference between high-quality and average work more visible than ever.
The future belongs to studios and collectives that see AI not as a replacement for human creativity, but as a multiplier of it. Teams willing to bring real cinematic discipline to emerging tools. Clients who understand that technology can expand imagination but cannot replace the humans who shape it. And leaders willing to say the uncomfortable truth out loud: great AI work is not cheap. It is not instant. It is not effortless. It is crafted in a new form.
If the last decade was about digital transformation, the next one will be about creative re-education. AI will continue evolving at a pace the industry has never experienced. Our responsibility is to protect the creative process as it happens, not mourn it once it is gone.
And that begins with a simple reminder: tools don’t tell stories. People do.
Credits for the film:
Director & Producer: Natalja Safronova
AI Production & VFX: TOML Collective
Concept: Natalja Safronova & Gabriel Calderwood
AI Artists: Besar Ismaili, Debora Deva
Sound Designer & Music: Benet Sera
Colourist: Misha Kim