MESA researchers published a new study titled "On the Creative Battlefield: How Advertising Practitioners View Ethics in the GAI-Assisted Creative Process" in the Journal of Media Ethics. This study explores how advertising practitioners incorporate Generative Artificial Intelligence across the five stages of the creative process and how they navigate the ethical challenges that emerge. Drawing on in-depth interviews with agency and freelance professionals, the research maps the evolving roles of GAI onto a stage-based creative framework and identifies the distinct tensions that arise at each phase.

Beyond task-level dilemmas, the findings reveal that practitioners often construe GAI ethics narrowly as minimal compliance, sometimes delegating responsibility to others as efficiency norms and technological awe overshadow concerns about data governance, bias, and labor. The study contributes a stage-specific framework of GAI-assisted creativity and offers actionable guidance for the field. The cover image is made with Canva AI.