Visual artist Kelly A. Boesch describes how AI became a creative partner after years working in film, fashion and graphic design. She uses it to build dreamlike images, animate them into short films and help shape music around her lyrics. Her experience raises a bigger question: what changes when a new tool brings an artist’s ideas closer to the work they can make?
Key takeaways
- Boesch sees AI as a creative tool, not a replacement for her ideas or artistic choices.
- Developing a recognisable style took experimentation and careful personalisation.
- Her process combines AI-generated imagery and instrumentation with her own lyrics, references and intentions.
- She encourages curious creators to experiment, stay open to unexpected results and find what brings them joy.
From early experiments to a signature style
Boesch says AI quickly captured her attention in a way no other technology had. She began exploring how it could work within her art, treating it like a paintbrush, camera or music studio: a means of making, rather than the source of every idea.
Her first images did not immediately look polished. Some were strange enough to puzzle her friends. Instead of trying to hide that quality, she leaned into it. Over time, the unexpected look became part of her visual identity.
That sense of discovery also changed what felt possible. Once AI video tools became available, Boesch began animating her images and making short films. She then started writing lyrics and using AI to help develop the instrumental parts of the songs. Her words draw on both her visual ideas and her experiences.
The different elements can reinforce one another. In her video “Quiet Rebellion”, for example, lyrics about being true to yourself sit alongside distinctive visuals. Boesch says bringing image and music into alignment can feel like magic. She has also signed a record deal, an outcome she had not expected when she began experimenting.
What makes AI-assisted work personal?
Boesch recognises that people have strong and sometimes conflicting views about AI art, including concerns about systems being trained on other artists’ work. She does not claim that these questions are settled. Instead, she describes what informs her own creative process: references from nature, fashion, patterns and ideas that have stayed with her.
For her, the work is personal because it reflects what she chooses to explore and what she hopes it will make people feel. AI can generate material, but her account centres on human decisions: what to ask for, what to keep, what to change and how to connect an image to a story.
That distinction matters in wider conversations about generative AI. As Power AI Media covers across its reporting on AI, creative tools bring practical possibilities alongside questions about authorship, training data and the value of human direction. Enjoying a result does not make those questions disappear, but neither does the debate erase the choices artists bring to their work.
A look at the process
Boesch demonstrates how much can change between a basic prompt and a more personal result. A prompt describing a character in an enchanted, cinematic marketplace produces an image she considers fairly generic. Using the same prompt with personalisation and style-reference codes gives it a look closer to her own aesthetic.
That difference did not come from a single clever instruction. She says it took time, repeated attempts and work to teach the system the visual style she wanted. In other words, the tool did not simply deliver a finished vision. She had to develop a way of guiding it.
She then brought the marketplace image into a video, adding a song with lyrics that turned the scene into a story. The example shows how AI can be part of a larger creative process, rather than the whole process by itself.
Why curiosity matters
Boesch says that since working with AI, she has made what she considers the best work of her life. She also describes feeling lighter and curious again. Her images and songs have reached millions of people through social platforms and music apps, but the personal effect of creating seems just as important to her as the audience.
She sees creative AI as an emerging field with plenty left to explore. It may also offer an entry point for people who have never thought of themselves as artistic. Trying a tool does not guarantee a masterpiece; it can, however, give someone a reason to start making things.
Her advice is simple: play around, make something beautiful or strange, and see what happens. The point is not to hand over creativity to a machine. It is to follow an idea, make choices and notice what brings you joy.
How AI Unleashed (Not Replaced) My Creativity | Kelly A. Boesch | TED