Takuma Kawada

Profile

Takuma Kawada is a Creative Director at dentsu, a global leader in integrated growth and transformation. He began his career as a copywriter and has since expanded his focus from crafting compelling advertising to exploring the underlying structures of creativity itself. One of his notable achievements is the development of AICO2, an AI copywriter powered by a creative thinking model derived from the cognitive processes of professional copywriters. In 2025, he collaborated with the University of Tokyo’s Center for Artificial Intelligence on a joint research project, which resulted in a published study analyzing how commercial likability influences the purchase funnel. His work has been recognized with numerous domestic and international awards, including the 2013 TCC Newcomer Award, the 2020 ACC Gold (Craft), and the 2021 Spikes Asia Grand Prix. He continues to push the boundaries of creativity by developing new systems to visualize ideas before they take shape in words.

Synopsis

Topic: Human Craft Meets AI: Dentsu’s Creative Thinking Model

How can we teach AI to learn human creativity? Should we archive the masterpieces of advertising from the past? Or should we systematize creative thinking methods? At Dentsu, we chose a completely different approach. We believe that the essence of creativity lies not in the final idea itself, but in the thinking process that leads to it. Which insight did the creator focus on to trigger a perception change? Which expression was chosen to best communicate that insight? By verbalizing these invisible steps—the paths of thought that creators have traditionally taken unconsciously—and training AI with them, we sought to transfer the true craft of creativity. This approach resulted in two practical tools: the copywriting AI “AICO2”, which generates advertising taglines, and the visual idea generation AI “AI ART DIRECTOR”, which proposes design concepts. Both are outcomes of teaching machines the way humans actually think when making creative choices. In other words, instead of feeding AI with finished works, we taught it in the same way humans nurture other humans—by sharing the logic behind ideas. We call this approach the “Creative Thinking Model”.