Good Practice podcast: Amy Carvajal on AI, Originality, and Award-Worthy Creative

In Episode 3 of our podcast season on Conscious Curation, creative executive and regular on advertising awards juries Amy Carvajal shares how technology is shaping what stands out and why in marketing today.

Good Practice Season One: Conscious Curation

Our new interview series, Good Practice, delves into what makes good creative and good business. Together, Stocksy CEO Trace Cohen and Chief Creative Officer Genevieve Ross co-host this interview series, exploring the ways curation feeds into guests’ creative practice.

Episode 3: featuring Amy Carvajal, Creative Director at Amy x Co

What separates the good from the great in creative work? According to Amy Carvajal, curiosity, craft, and the willingness to ask better questions are vital ingredients. As a highly-lauded creative exec, former CCO at top agencies like Code & Theory and McCann, and founder of Amy & Co, Amy helps brands turn values into action. In this episode of Good Practice, she shares her insights on work that stands out in 2025, how AI is influencing creative process, and why sometimes the best ideas start with rewriting the brief.

As a seasoned juror for the Effies, Webbies, and many more, Amy knows firsthand what makes great creative work, and holds an inside view of what rises to the top. For her, standing out isn’t just about having a culturally relevant idea — it’s equally about execution. “Craft is the hardest thing to do,” she says.

Whether it’s in a fine-art portrait or a well-placed billboard, true craft is felt as a lasting impression. Once the standard criteria for judging creative work get exhausted, personal response remains an ultimate guidepost: “Am I jealous of it? Do I wish I did it?”

Drawing inspiration from art and commercial work alike, Amy points to painter Amy Sherald’s use of color and Aer Lingus’ “Irish Exit” campaign as examples of creativity that lingers, combining elements of elegance, simplicity, and memorable impact, with reference to Sherald, and Ireland’s national carrier daring smart, cheeky and use culturally referential humor.

Amy also opens up about her use of conversational AI and generative AI in her own practice. “AI is not the final chapter,” she says. Instead, it’s a tool to quickly establish a baseline, visualize ideas or test assumptions — even if that just means ruling out the obvious. “It tells us what the norm is, so we can evolve past it.”

Reflecting on her own creative process, Amy finds a through-line in notions of pushing through mental boundaries. Whether teaching herself to craft books as a child, or learning code in order to hold her own in new conversations, she defines her own idea of what’s possible.

“I don’t believe that impossibility exists,” she says. “Anything is possible—it’s just, what’s the hurdle we need to overcome to get there?”

For Amy, that’s the heart of her practice: identifying what triggers the next shift in perspective, constantly “coming at things from different angles… turning over a different rock.”