Integrity, Originality, and an Uncompromising Focus: Sjors Van Hoof’s Approach to Using AI Tools
Sjors van Hoof is the co-founder of ACE and head of ACE’s AI Studio. An award-winning Dutch creative AI director with over 20 years of experience, he has shaped ground-breaking digital experiences for leading global brands.
Blending creative direction with emerging technologies, he thrives on pushing boundaries and creating innovative solutions at the crossroads of creativity and technology.
Sjors sat down with LBB to discuss his role as ACE’s AI Studio, the newfound freedom to accelerate creativity with AI and their latest work for New Balance…
LBB> What’s the most impactful way that AI is helping you in your current role?
Sjors> For me, it’s the freedom to imagine and accelerate creativity in ways that were simply impossible before.
AI transforms the earliest stages of the creative process, where ideas are fragile and undefined, into a space of clarity and momentum. From visualising an idea to researching, that clarity and momentum doesn’t just benefit creatives; it benefits the entire team and our clients, because when a vision feels tangible from the start, collaboration happens with far more confidence and energy.
A good example is a campaign we developed for Under Armour with Antonio Rüdiger. Normally, in a pitch situation, you don’t yet have access to client assets or footage of a global athlete – so you’re stuck piecing together references from what’s publicly available. That creates constraints, and you end up spending time explaining to the client what it will eventually look like, rather than showing it.
We decided to flip the script by putting AI at the very heart of our process. This allowed us to craft a vision as if it already existed – something that felt authentic, ambitious, and completely new to the client. It wasn’t just about winning the pitch (which we did); it was about laying the creative foundation for the entire production. That upfront clarity unlocked efficiency, and more importantly, freed up energy and space for us to focus on what really matters: creating iconic work.
LBB> We hear a lot about AI driving efficiencies and saving time. But are there any ways that you see the technology making qualitative improvements to your work, too?
Sjors> Absolutely. Efficiency is the obvious headline in a world revolving around money and budgets, but the real story is about expanding the quality and ambition of what we can create. AI has become a kind of creative amplifier. It removes the old constraints on what’s possible.
For me, the most exciting part is how it lets us prototype at the level of imagination. In the past, certain ideas would stay locked in your sketchbook because they were simply too complex, too expensive, or too technically challenging to explore at an early stage. Now, we can test those wild ideas in hours instead of months.
That shift means the concepts we pursue are bolder, more cinematic, more unexpected, because we’re not self-censoring based on what feels ‘doable.’
I also like how it has changed the texture of the work itself. We can generate worlds, narratives, and visual languages that were previously only accessible to a studio with a Hollywood budget. Suddenly, the edge between imagination and execution is razor thin. That’s not just a productivity gain; it’s a qualitative leap in the kind of creative work we can even dream of making.
LBB> What are the biggest challenges in collaborating with AI as a creative professional, and how have you overcome them?
Sjors> Consistency and control have become the new gold in the era of AI. The internet is overflowing with tutorials that make using AI tools and coding look simple, but when you’re working on high-demand projects, you quickly discover ‘the will of the machine.’
AI can be unpredictable, a bit like a child: it listens, but it doesn’t always deliver what you asked for. It can go off-track, into directions that aren’t relevant. This can be very frustrating, because you know it’s not what you wanted to create.
That’s where the craft comes in. To push AI beyond novelty and into true creativity, you need more than just the right prompts. You need a creative vision, taste, determination, technical problem-solving, storytelling, and an eye for art all working together. Talented AI artists aren’t specialists in any one thing; they’re multidimensional creators who blend these skills into a new kind of mastery.
As I was saying, it’s often trial and error, and it requires a mindset of persistence and curiosity to get to the level of quality we expect. But the exciting part is how quickly the field evolves. Every week, new models and tools emerge, each with their own strengths. Knowing how to navigate that landscape, and when to lean on which skill, is as critical today as having an eye for composition or a feel for narrative.
In that sense, AI isn’t replacing craft, rather it’s reshaping it. And those who embrace that multidimensional approach are the ones setting the bar for what is possible.
LBB> How do you balance the use of AI with your own creative instincts and intuition?
Sjors> For me, AI is a co-pilot, not the pilot. It can help shape visions, accelerate ideas, and even produce parts of the work, but in the end, I’m the one setting the goal, and steering the plane there. Creativity requires constant judgment calls, when to go left, when to go right, and that’s where taste and intuition make the difference.
We think of it as three pillars: AI, human, and brand. AI brings power and speed, the human brings taste, intuition, and problem-solving, and the brand provides the framework that keeps everything on-point and relevant. Without that balance, you either get work that’s technically impressive but soulless, or work that’s imaginative but not aligned with the brand’s truth.
The reality is that the technology space is crowded. As I said, new models and tools appear every day. But the real skill lies in knowing how to use them, how to combine them, and how to apply that human sense of branding and storytelling to make work that’s not just new, but meaningful and iconic.
LBB> And how do you ensure that the work produced with AI maintains a sense of authenticity or human touch?
Sjors> The technology can generate a thousand ideas, but not every idea is iconic, not every output captures the essence of a brand. The authenticity comes from human creativity. That's where the human role becomes, or stays, critical.
We use AI as a tool to shape and refine our concepts, making them sharper, richer, and more thoughtful. In the end, it’s cultural empathy, taste, and a deep understanding of the brand that determine what feels true and what doesn’t. Those are the ingredients that ensure the work resonates, that it has soul.
LBB> Do you think there are any misconceptions or misunderstandings in the way we currently talk about AI in the industry?
Sjors> Many people talk about AI as if there will be one ultimate tool or model that does everything. In reality, the future is about combining different models, each with their own strengths, in creative ways. The real skill is knowing which tool to use when, and how to orchestrate them into a consistent workflow that fits the idea and goal you are chasing.
LBB> What ethical considerations come to mind when using AI to generate or assist with creative content?
Sjors> The biggest discussion is, of course, about training data. In our industry, there’s always been one golden rule: create your own unique work that stands apart from others. That principle doesn’t change just because we now have AI.
I recently saw an interview with James Cameron where he pointed out something interesting: too much of the debate is about what data went into training the models, and not enough about what comes out of them. The reality is that AI is here to stay, and we can’t rewrite its past. But we can decide how we use it today, and how we ensure the outcomes respect our creative standards and values.
For me, the ethical responsibility is to treat AI the same way we’ve always treated any tool in the creative industry: use it with integrity, originality, and an uncompromising focus on making work that is distinct, authentic, and worthy of the brand it represents.
LBB> Have you seen attitudes towards AI change in recent times? If so, how?
Sjors> Definitely, I’ve seen a big shift. When I first started experimenting with AI in projects, people were excited of course, but there was a lot of hesitation. Budgets weren’t allocated, stakeholders weren’t in place, and most organisations simply didn’t know how to integrate it into their processes. There was interest, but not yet confidence.
Fast-forward to today, and AI is on everyone’s agenda. Companies now have targets, dedicated budgets, and a real eagerness to get started. At the same time, there’s still a lot of uncertainty around where to focus, how to scale, and what the first meaningful steps should be.
That’s exactly where we come in with our AI Studio: helping brands cut through the noise, discover the real opportunities, and build their first cases in a way that’s both strategic and creative. It’s exciting to see the conversation shift from ‘Should we?’ to ‘What new ground can we break?’
LBB> Broadly speaking, does the industry’s current conversation around AI leave you feeling generally positive, or generally concerned, about creativity’s future?
Sjors> As mentioned, authentic and iconic creativity is more important than ever, and I truly believe it can only happen through the collaboration between human talent and machines. On that front, I’m very positive. AI gives us the chance to create things we’ve always dreamed of but couldn’t execute before. It expands the creative palette in ways that are incredibly exciting.
My concern lies more with the general production industries and the business models that surround them. There’s a big shift coming. Many companies still rely heavily on production craft. 50-70% of the work is still repetitive production craft. That type of work will be most disrupted by AI in the coming years.
The challenge for our industry is to raise the bar: to focus less on average output, and more on originality, taste, and storytelling. AI won’t replace creativity, it will replace routine. The future belongs to the agencies and creatives who can use AI to amplify their vision.
LBB> Do you think AI has the potential to create entirely new forms of art or media that weren’t possible before? If so, how?
Sjors> I think it already is. Of course, there are plenty of AI enthusiasts experimenting and creating playful new content, but what excites me most are the truly visionary AI artists who are exploring its full potential. They’re telling stories in ways that were previously unimaginable.
Beyond that, AI is unlocking creative solutions that never made it to the table before in the first place. Take personalisation: it’s been a big topic for years, but many great ideas didn’t happen because of the scale and budgets required. With AI, those same ideas suddenly become feasible, and that shift will have a huge impact on how we think about relevance and creativity in the coming years.
And this goes beyond advertising. AI has the ability to shape entirely new forms of culture and services in commerce, healthcare, learning, and beyond. In a sense, it’s not just a new tool, it’s a whole new medium. One that expands the edges of creativity into spaces we’ve only just begun to explore.
LBB> Thinking about your own role/discipline, what kind of impact do you think AI will have in the medium-term future? To what extent will it change the way people in your role work?
Sjors> I’ve always worked at the intersection of creativity and technology, designing digital solutions that pushed boundaries. Now, as chief AI at ACE, AI has become the engine for that innovation. This goes beyond making production faster or more efficient. It’s about helping brands explore entirely new ways to connect, communicate, and create value.
In many ways, it feels like the early days of the internet all over again. Back then, people all over the world were pioneering what it meant to be creative. I took inspiration from that, and am glad to be able to say that I was part of a much larger community that was shaping the digital world from scratch. Now, we’re reshaping it with AI, a companion that expands what we can imagine and build. In the medium term, I see my role as guiding brands through that frontier, helping them turn experiments into breakthroughs.
