The San Francisco Ballet wanted to attract a younger audience.

America's oldest professional ballet company had a show: Mere Mortals, a modern-day take on the Greek myth Pandora's Box.

Now, the San Francisco Ballet needed to market it.

So, it went to Columbus-based The Shipyard, Central Ohio's busiest ad agency – especially after its acquisition of Fahlgren Mortine – racking up $284.4 million in gross receipts last year.

"The entire show was a point of view on artificial intelligence," David Sonderman, chief creative officer at The Shipyard, told Columbus Business First. "So what we did when we learned that this was happening, we said, 'How can we use AI to help market the show?'"

And that's exactly what The Shipyard did.

The agency taught ChatGPT what the ballet was, and then asked it to write reviews of the show.

"Amusing to witness humans grappling with their impending irrelevance," it wrote.

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"It's like we tapped into its ego," Sonderman said. "We didn't really, of course, because it's a machine. But it felt like it."

It's one of the many ways ad agencies are adopting generative AI as more and more companies experiment with tools like ChatGPT.

Business First spoke with executives at five of the region's ad agencies – all of whom stressed that they see AI as an imaginative or productivity tool, not a replacement for the creatives that fuel their businesses.

As U.S. workers ponder the implications of AI – especially the notion that it is coming for our jobs – the executives largely see AI as more friend than foe, even if some remain more trepidatious than others.

Continue reading with Columbus Business First.