This month, Artlist launched a brand new AI image and video generator. Designed to empower creators to embrace AI, this new tool creates unique visuals based on text-to-image or image-to-video prompts. With the exponential rate at which AI is developing, it’s understandable to feel a little intimidated or overwhelmed. That’s why our new tool is ideal for beginners and advanced creators alike, helping you create stunning visuals, save time, and fuel your creativity.
To ignite your inspiration, we caught up with two creators using AI to enhance their visions. They’re real-world examples of the way AI can empower creatives, and how the latest tools can inspire artists, filmmakers, and content creators to explore the realms of possibility, not replacing their art but enhancing it.
Today, we’ll dive into how creators are integrating AI tools into their art projects, utilizing them at every touchpoint from storyboarding to concept creation to finishing touches.
They’ll share the way they use AI to experiment and expand the horizons of their imaginations, their tips and advice for harnessing the power of AI for artists, and their thoughts on the future of creative production.
Meet the creators
Murad Muradov, the creator putting the AI in Azerbaijan
Murad Muradov was born and raised in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan in Central Asia. Murad says his creative evolution from web design to motion graphics was shaped by an early fascination with computers. His family was the first in his area with a computer, so people often asked him for help with one thing or another. Now, he’s one of Azerbaijan’s most promising creatives. The Visual Artist, Creative Director, and Art Director has become known for compelling AI-fuelled visuals deeply rooted in the culture of his home country.
Toma Gerzha, the creator championing post-Soviet youth culture
Toma is a documentary photographer and multimedia artist. She was born in Moscow in 2003 and moved to the Netherlands as a child while staying closely connected to her Russian family and culture, which is exactly what she explores in her art. “I was always interested in my roots, and I speak Russian and Dutch fluently, so I’m multicultural, and that’s how the Eastern European style in my work came up.”
Toma Gerzha has been an artist-in-residence at Treehouse, a creative studio based on Amsterdam’s NDSM Wharf, and has collaborated with Artlist since early 2025.
Toma creates AI-generated photography best described as pioneering. She combines documentary storytelling with emerging technologies to explore themes of memory, culture, and identity.
Her breakthrough project, .ru (2023), marked her first major foray into AI and won her global recognition. Toma’s use of AI goes way beyond aesthetic experimentation — her work is concept-driven, steeped in nostalgia, and challenges conventional notions of documentary truth.
The journey from passion to profession
Murad didn’t have formal training in graphic design or fine art — instead, he worked for creative agencies for several years, where he honed his skills as a designer, artist, and creative director before pursuing his independent artistic journey.
His aesthetic is deeply influenced by Russian filmmakers, and he’s inspired by the rich sounds of Middle Eastern music, especially from Azerbaijan and Iran. “My work is inspired by Azerbaijani films,” he says.
Murad’s images and videos are saturated with Azerbaijani culture and demonstrated in the latest image-to-video catalog for Artlist. It was created using a variety of AI tools and explores many of the themes he’s become known for: religion, culture, futurism, and the divine feminine. The imagery is unique and show-stopping — and AI is the tool that empowered him to create it.
Murad’s video shows a woman sitting inside an old Arabic house filled with sand.
This video shows Soviet-style buildings floating mid-air while women in orange veils float around them.
And another depicts women in purple veils, walking along a misty, cobbled street.
Toma’s creative journey began by accident. Growing up traveling between Russia and the Netherlands, she used social media, photography, and technology to stay connected to her home country and make herself understood. When Toma first moved to the Netherlands, she didn’t speak English or Dutch, so she used imagery to communicate. “My dad gave me a Nokia with a camera, so I would take pictures to explain stuff,” Toma says. “So photography and digitalization came early because of that.”
Toma would show her friends in both countries images of her dual lives, and soon started filming. Then she found her mother’s old stash of DSLR cameras and took them everywhere she went. “I still take documentary-style photographs related to the Netherlands and Russian youth culture,” she says.
Now, Toma is redefining the boundaries between technology and art, encouraging conversation around memory, identity, and reality in the age of AI. Her collaboration with Artlist is still in the process of being created, and will combine her signature, Soviet-era style with Artlist’s new technology.
Using AI to enhance creativity
When the first AI models came out in 2021, Toma was instantly curious about the possibilities they presented. She tried out several early AI tools to find out how they could support her creativity.“When the war started, and I couldn’t go back to Russia anymore, I started to use my own photo archives to train the AI models,” she says.
The result was images with an Eastern European style, similar to her own. “It was a nice way to sort my archives and documentary projects,” Toma says. “I started to take it more seriously and use AI to create animations by combining images in a stop-motion, old-school style.”
Murad has a similar story. As soon as AI tools emerged on the global stage, he felt compelled to find out how they could accelerate human creativity. “AI is only powerful if you have vision,” he says. “Without vision, you can’t do anything. It’s the same with Photoshop or After Effects; it’s the same instrument. You need to have a vision and create it.”
Murad is driven by a desire to spark deep emotional reactions in his audience, and believes AI helped him actualize his creative visions in ways that wouldn’t have been possible otherwise. “Working with AI is like having a creative assistant or art director,” Murad says. “I see it as having two or three people in the room, bouncing ideas off each other, discussing a concept, and helping develop my vision more effectively.”
Tools, techniques, and technology
Both Toma and Murad use a range of generative AI platforms in their work and always try out the latest technology, as well as editing in After Effects and Photoshop.
Both are transparent about their use of AI, and Murad is happy to share how he makes his images but steers clear from explaining the meaning behind his work, preferring instead to allow viewers to make their own interpretations. “I don’t like to explain so much,” Murad says. “I want to leave them to brainstorm and have their visions, their thoughts.”
Toma sees social media and her art as inherently linked and enjoys creating for a range of social platforms. “I love creating animations, working with reels and TikToks, and creating something new using a mix of AI and documentary photography.”
Not long ago, Toma went to Kenya to explore visual themes to create new images, animation styles, and learn how to work with video in new ways. But she recommends one place in particular to get started.
“To start with AI, I would really suggest Artlist,” Toma says. “Because they have a lot of tools that a beginner can try and get good results.”
Working with image and video generators
Murad believes Artlist’s AI image and video generators are ideal for anyone curious about delving into the world of AI. “When I explore AI-generated art, I see it as a collaborative process between the AI and the artist,” he says. “The artist contributes their concepts and creative direction, while the AI assists in bringing those ideas to life. This partnership allows for continuous creativity. So the AI doesn’t replace the artist but enhances their ability to develop and refine their work.”
Toma uses AI in a multitude of unexpected ways. CTRL+R is a project Toma started in 2021 as part of a high school thesis about young people in Russia. When the war started, she expanded the concept to explore how the war changed the lives of people she’d photographed. “I started to actively explore AI as a tool to collect everything that I’d already shot and explore what I can create from that.”
The result of CTRL+R is a book and exhibition of documentary photography that AI helped sort and archive. And .ru (the Russian web domain) is a culmination of the new images she made from that project. “Those just look really photorealistic, but they are fully made with AI,” Toma explains. “They contain all the pictures generated from the book to create an archive of new images.”
Toma is in the process of working with Artlist on an image-to-video AI project. “I’m exploring the image side of things, trying new styles and combining them with my own style,” she says. “The new technology has some realistic styles that are good for people who haven’t used AI before, especially for people who want to create ultra-realistic film photography.”
Advice for aspiring creatives
Murad believes a strong artistic vision and consistent practice are essential to art in all its forms, regardless of whether AI is in the mix, and sees AI as a powerful professional tool and creative partner rather than a shortcut. “My advice is to develop your vision,” Murad says. “Always practice your vision. If you can shoot with a camera, then you can also make art with AI. AI can only help you if you have your own vision.”
Toma’s advice is not to be afraid to explore the world of AI and to unearth the possibilities it brings creators. “I was at a photographer’s dinner in Paris, and when I told them I work with AI, everybody was freaked out,” she says. “I think photographers are afraid. They expect AI to replace them. But it doesn’t work like that.”
Toma believes the media is responsible for AI’s negative reputation. “I think it was hated at the beginning because the news wrote sentences like ‘AI created…’ and so people think a machine does everything for you,” Toma explains. “They do not understand how it works, and how difficult and long and exhausting the process can be to create one image in the hyper-realistic result that I want, and how much time it saves me. That’s because the media didn’t frame it in the right way at the beginning, but now I think it’s more accepted.”
The future of creativity
As AI creators, both Toma and Murad believe artists, photographers, filmmakers, and creatives can benefit from embracing AI tools and should view them as a creative partner that can improve workflow and boost creativity.
“I think the future of AI is positive,” Murad says. “You can develop your idea and grow it with AI. You prepare your prompt and images and adjust them until they start to align with your vision. That’s when you begin fine-tuning the prompts to achieve the exact result you’re aiming for.”
Toma urges creators to explore new programs and see what they come up with. “I get most of my money from artificial intelligence commissions because I love exploring new things,” Toma says. “Just from opening an AI program and trying out some different styles, different techniques, and finding out what I like.”
She also suggests combining AI with your practice by training it on your own images, taking inspiration from AI influencers. “I’ve seen so many artists combine AI with their techniques, and it looks so cool,” she says. “And I appreciate when they are open about their process, and teach people how to do it themselves. I’m open about using AI and about telling people that AI can help you create really cool things, especially in combination with your own art.”
Neither artist believes that AI can replicate the human touch alone because it doesn’t have emotions. “It hasn’t lived a life or had your experiences, so you have to explain your emotions to AI,” Murad says. “That’s why it can’t replace humans.”
Art, powered by AI
These creatives show that AI isn’t replacing creativity — it’s reshaping it. Toma and Murad are using AI image and video generators to turn their own ideas and concepts into larger-than-life, thought-provoking work. From Murad’s cultural dreamscapes to Toma’s nostalgic, post-Soviet photo essays, these artists prove that AI can be a powerful creative partner with limitless possibilities. Like Murad and Toma, the key is to experiment with new ideas, embrace the latest technological developments, and explore the boundaries of your own creativity. To get started, try Artlist’s new AI tools for image, video, and voiceover today.
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