Epica welcomes its first AI juror

PARIS, Today: The Epica Awards – the only global creative ad show judged by trade journos – has announced an industry first: an AI awards juror.

It’s the first time in over 35 years that a non-journalist has been invited to vote on Epica Awards entries, which are normally judged exclusively by the press.

The AIJE – or AI Jury Experiment – will take place on the margins of this year’s Epica Awards. The results will not count towards the official prizes.

The AI will be asked to make its judgements based on text: the summary of the creative idea that agencies are required to include alongside their entries.

This means that only the idea itself can be judged, not its execution.

In this initial phase, the AI will restrict its focus to categories encompassing technique and digital mediums.

The AI will be tasked with assessing each idea in relation to others within its designated category. The AI’s assessments, performed over multiple iterations, are then averaged, ensuring a more robust and reliable evaluation of each concept’s creative value.

The Epica Awards will publish the results alongside its official list of winners on Friday 8 December.

“This experiment will be intriguing and fun. However, we believe humans are the best-placed to judge human creativity.”

Operations director Nicolas Huvé, who is behind the initiative, said: “AI is poised to revolutionise creativity, and as a creative award organization, we simply couldn’t turn a blind eye.

“After months of testing, we’re confident that we now have a functional protocol, albeit for research purposes.

“Our experimental AI juror is not part of our main jury and we have no plans to replace our esteemed journalists. But it will be fascinating to see if the results have anything in common.”

Epica Awards editorial director Mark Tungate said: “Our press jury are keen to document topical events, and AI is the story of the moment.

“So it made sense for us to join the conversation. Epica has a history of innovation – we were the first creative awards show to launch a Use of AI category, for example. This experiment will be intriguing and fun.

“However, we believe humans are the best-placed to judge human creativity.”

Established in 1987, Epica Awards is unique as it is the only creative industry prize judged by the press.

Today the jury brings together more than 200 chief editors and senior reporters from trade, specialist and mainstream titles in over 60 countries. M+AD Daily ed David Gapes is a regular on the jury.

The Epica Awards are open for entries from 1 July to 6 October.

• More: epica-awards.com