Aligning Google’s AI Models for Creativity

Can Machines Become Creative?
Large Language models are trained on terabytes of world knowledge. But can an understanding of the past enable them to output novel ideas that are net new? And if so, how might this reshape the creative process? The Google AI Lab team tapped Addition to find out. In the process, we developed new fine-tuning techniques, new tools, and new paradigms for human-machine creativity that have since rolled out across Google’s marketing organization and beyond.

Training On Human Ideas And Insights
Our approach to fine-tuning involved generating input-output pairings from the best Google marketing and advertising projects of recent years. Training data was crowd-sourced from across the organization and processed using an LLM-based pipeline that transformed it into an optimized training format. Variations of this approach were tested and compared with one another, leveraging a mix of different data sources, formats, and fine-tuning parameters to align on the ideal configuration.

A Smarter Way to Brainstorm
Through prototyping and design research with a range of Google team members, we designed an intuitive user interface that allows Google’s marketing teams to instantly explore a wide range of marketing ideas across formats, channels, and engagement strategies.

Users can select a creative medium, and with a simple prompt, the tool provides a spectrum of creative thought starters that marketers can iterate on, enabling them to rapidly explore the vector space of creative possibilities.

Checking For Inclusivity
Beyond idea generation, the tool is also capable of evaluating AI as well as human-generated ideas for brand standards, including Google’s ‘All In Marketing Guidelines’. The system employs a ‘critic loop’ that taps into Google’s proprietary research and best practices for inclusive marketing to check for issues and identify opportunities to improve ideas for inclusive outcomes when it comes to topics like diversity representation, accessibility, and authenticity.