Creatives on AI: Lewis Clark
Cocogun copywriter Lewis Clark delves into the process of creating the Am Dash and what it means to write like a human.
Published on
Jun 24, 2025
6
min. read
Welcome to Creatives on AI, our series of conversations with people across the industry exploring the nuance behind AI’s role in our work. We’re shifting our focus past the polarizing one-liners and digging into how AI may help, hurt, and fundamentally reshape our creative worlds. While AI isn't systematically replacing creative roles, it sure is changing things (and fast!). If you want to understand how people are navigating this seismic shift, stay tuned in for new perspectives each week this month.
This week we chatted with Lewis Clark—Copywriter at Cocogun and one of the creators of the Am Dash.
To start, give us a sense of your role and what a typical day looks like for you?
I’m a creative copywriter at Cocogun, an indie agency here in Sydney. When you’re working at an agency as agile and devoted to craft as this place, one of the great joys is that rarely are two days the same. From a big campaign brief to a secret side hustle from our creative partner Ant Melder (he’s almost always cooking something up behind the scenes), you never know what you might be tinkering on when you walk through the door. And as a creative inspired by all the weird and wonderful ways a bit of wordsmithery can come to life, I wouldn’t have it any other way.
If you had to sum up your creative process, how would you describe it in one sentence?
I think unearthing a good idea is a bit like mistaking wasabi with avocado—you’ll feel it before you understand what’s happening. Hopefully less burning sensation though. Sorry, that was two sentences. Wait. Oh no…
Let’s get into the topic at hand. How are you using AI in your day-to-day life? And how are you currently using generative AI tools in your work?
As a writer, generative AI doesn’t enter my workflow too often. But I must confess, I speak with ChatGPT daily to consult on anything from budgeting for the month ahead to brushing up on exceedingly useless but intriguing details about artists from history. Did you know Bowie once tried to exorcise his swimming pool because he believed it was haunted?
You and your colleagues created the Am Dash in response to ChatGPT's adoption of the Em Dash and the discourse around it. Can you describe how the idea for the Am Dash came together? Was it a slow process of conversations and ideation, or, was there a defining moment where the idea clicked?
The idea for the Am Dash emerged from a conversation among the writers, feeling anxious to use our much beloved em dashes for fear of appearing to have ‘consulted’ ChatGPT on our work. I think something must have been bubbling under the surface for so long that when the words “Why don’t we invent our own punctuation mark?” were uttered, all ears pricked up collectively at the agency. This felt like something we needed to make.
Can you tell us more about your strategy and process of both bringing it to life, and writing about it?
A skeleton crew was assembled. It was an efficient, inspired, covert mission—we couldn’t afford any leaks. Nor wasted time. For all the Mad Men viewers out there, I felt a bit like Stan working on ‘Project K’ (the secret Heinz Ketchup pitch). It came together in a flash—the name, the design, the story and the rollout all flowing fast and free. Channeling my days as a B. Media Arts student at uni, I was reminded of all the wonderfully human pre-AI debates in the lecture hall on the subject of consciousness and human thought, so that quintessential Descartes quote felt like the perfect framing for what the am dash really stands for.
What does the Am Dash represent to you?
If you’ve been on LinkedIn recently, you will have witnessed writers everywhere feeling that this deeply human craft we’ve devoted our lives to is feeling decreasingly thoughtful, in the name of efficiency. The late, great David Abbott once quipped: 'Shit that arrives at the speed of light, is still shit.’ I think this is what the am dash represents, a timely reminder that being human—a person who has lived, experienced, felt, and as such thinks about the world in a way that is uniquely their own, and can express this beautifully with words—is valuable far beyond a timeline, or a budget. Perhaps now, more than ever. After all, what is writing if not a means for one human to express their thoughts to another, and have them feel something?
How do you feel that the Am Dash fits into the (never ending) conversation about AI in brand writing right now?
It’s been really interesting to see a whole range of opinions on the am dash (mostly on our creative director Loz Maneschi’s viral LinkedIn Post). Some love it, some are already using it, some have ‘thoughts’, and a small few maybe missed the point. And, whilst it never ends, my hope is that among all the AI-infused dread, the am dash injects a streak of optimism into the conversation about the future of human writing.
Can you tell us more about your choices of Times New Human and Areal as the fonts?
There were a few typeface families in early discussions, but simplicity felt key. Typefaces every writer grew up with, honed their craft with, published their first book, article, journal with—so putting a human spin on Times New Roman and Arial felt right. On the design side of things, selecting these two crowd favourites was also an opportunity to explore how the am dash looks in both serif and sans serif fonts—something our senior designer Mollie Starr handled with exceptionally thorough and ever-thoughtful craft and care. You can take a look at her workflow here.
Were there any alternate names, symbols, or fonts you almost went with?
There were some initial doodles and sketches in the much-coveted notepad of Ant Melder. Including one that incorporated a kind of human heartbeat. See below. As for working titles, there were a few…but perhaps these are best left in the cosmos.
What do you hope is the future of the Am Dash?
World domination. We’ve been winking at Google, Adobe, Microsoft and Apple across the rollout, and would love to see this little glyph integrated universally across both digital and non-digital spaces, to give writers the opportunity to plant a human authorship flag in their work. With this comes the caveat, that at this stage, AI likely also has access to it. It’s a risky mission!
How would you feel if AI learned to use the Am Dash?
Conflicting emotions. On the one hand, our singular, rebellious glyph has been hijacked by our algorithmic usurper…but on the other hand, isn’t that the greatest compliment of all? In order to adequately reflect human writing as is its very nature, ChatGPT sought to include our punctuation mark, as the most human one of the lot. After all, what the am dash stands for extends beyond whether generative text can use it or not—it’s a rallying cry to use your great human brain and think before you write. It’s not just anti-AI, it’s anti-lazy!
Speaking more broadly to AI, how do you think it’s changed or evolved your process? And how did that change feel?
In the final stages of shaping my writing, I find it can offer a different way to express a certain thought or sentiment—a certain turn of phrase or sentence structure that I kinda dig. And I’ll store that in my memory bank for next time. I try to limit AI to small editorial leg ups like this; I also find this is where it is most effective at the moment.
Is there any part of your creative process you refuse to automate?
Some say AI is a great collaborator for brainstorm sessions…but I prefer to keep ChatGPT out of the room. After all, algorithms reference where we as thinkers have already been, it can never create something new, something that hasn’t been done. But we can. I think that’s worth protecting.
Have you adopted any philosophies around AI and its adoption? If so, do you think your personal philosophy will change over time?
I think a loose philosophy might be that AI should always be in service of the creative process, never in replacement of it. That line can feel blurry at times, but listening to your gut here usually helps. What’s more human than that?!
If you were to prescribe a metaphor to AI, what would it be? There’s a lot out there already (a collaborator, a tool, a copilot, an agent, a threat), but curious what yours would be.
AI is that slightly annoying networky person at the party that is constantly telling you how great you are in conversation, but is secretly stashing everything you say for later use.
What do you hope creative work looks like in five years? What do you predict it will look like in 5 years?
I would like to see a resurgence of deeply non-digital work both in aesthetic and language convention. Like most things that saturate the zeitgeist, they become tired and people start looking for whatever the opposite of that thing is. We’re already starting to see people recognise ChatGPT’s tone of voice, resulting in a shift to private online communities where real human conversations are had instead. I think it’d be cool to see this come across eventually in the work, too. Maybe your ad doesn’t have an AI-generated UFO in it, but you’ll be able to tell someone actually made it. And that counts for a lot I reckon.
And for fun, if the robot apocalypse does in fact come to fruition, what's one skill you have that will help you survive or thrive in a robot-led world?
I’m quick to let ChatGPT know if I think it has missed the mark, so honestly, I’m first on the chopping block. And Ant Melder reckons his ability to make the perfect 'tap-dripping' sound by flicking his cheek would be impressive enough to our robot overlords for them to keep him around for entertainment purposes for a while (until they sample it, get bored of it, and have no further use for him…).
Welcome to Creatives on AI, our series of conversations with people across the industry exploring the nuance behind AI’s role in our work. We’re shifting our focus past the polarizing one-liners and digging into how AI may help, hurt, and fundamentally reshape our creative worlds. While AI isn't systematically replacing creative roles, it sure is changing things (and fast!). If you want to understand how people are navigating this seismic shift, stay tuned in for new perspectives each week this month.
This week we chatted with Lewis Clark—Copywriter at Cocogun and one of the creators of the Am Dash.
To start, give us a sense of your role and what a typical day looks like for you?
I’m a creative copywriter at Cocogun, an indie agency here in Sydney. When you’re working at an agency as agile and devoted to craft as this place, one of the great joys is that rarely are two days the same. From a big campaign brief to a secret side hustle from our creative partner Ant Melder (he’s almost always cooking something up behind the scenes), you never know what you might be tinkering on when you walk through the door. And as a creative inspired by all the weird and wonderful ways a bit of wordsmithery can come to life, I wouldn’t have it any other way.
If you had to sum up your creative process, how would you describe it in one sentence?
I think unearthing a good idea is a bit like mistaking wasabi with avocado—you’ll feel it before you understand what’s happening. Hopefully less burning sensation though. Sorry, that was two sentences. Wait. Oh no…
Let’s get into the topic at hand. How are you using AI in your day-to-day life? And how are you currently using generative AI tools in your work?
As a writer, generative AI doesn’t enter my workflow too often. But I must confess, I speak with ChatGPT daily to consult on anything from budgeting for the month ahead to brushing up on exceedingly useless but intriguing details about artists from history. Did you know Bowie once tried to exorcise his swimming pool because he believed it was haunted?
You and your colleagues created the Am Dash in response to ChatGPT's adoption of the Em Dash and the discourse around it. Can you describe how the idea for the Am Dash came together? Was it a slow process of conversations and ideation, or, was there a defining moment where the idea clicked?
The idea for the Am Dash emerged from a conversation among the writers, feeling anxious to use our much beloved em dashes for fear of appearing to have ‘consulted’ ChatGPT on our work. I think something must have been bubbling under the surface for so long that when the words “Why don’t we invent our own punctuation mark?” were uttered, all ears pricked up collectively at the agency. This felt like something we needed to make.
Can you tell us more about your strategy and process of both bringing it to life, and writing about it?
A skeleton crew was assembled. It was an efficient, inspired, covert mission—we couldn’t afford any leaks. Nor wasted time. For all the Mad Men viewers out there, I felt a bit like Stan working on ‘Project K’ (the secret Heinz Ketchup pitch). It came together in a flash—the name, the design, the story and the rollout all flowing fast and free. Channeling my days as a B. Media Arts student at uni, I was reminded of all the wonderfully human pre-AI debates in the lecture hall on the subject of consciousness and human thought, so that quintessential Descartes quote felt like the perfect framing for what the am dash really stands for.
What does the Am Dash represent to you?
If you’ve been on LinkedIn recently, you will have witnessed writers everywhere feeling that this deeply human craft we’ve devoted our lives to is feeling decreasingly thoughtful, in the name of efficiency. The late, great David Abbott once quipped: 'Shit that arrives at the speed of light, is still shit.’ I think this is what the am dash represents, a timely reminder that being human—a person who has lived, experienced, felt, and as such thinks about the world in a way that is uniquely their own, and can express this beautifully with words—is valuable far beyond a timeline, or a budget. Perhaps now, more than ever. After all, what is writing if not a means for one human to express their thoughts to another, and have them feel something?
How do you feel that the Am Dash fits into the (never ending) conversation about AI in brand writing right now?
It’s been really interesting to see a whole range of opinions on the am dash (mostly on our creative director Loz Maneschi’s viral LinkedIn Post). Some love it, some are already using it, some have ‘thoughts’, and a small few maybe missed the point. And, whilst it never ends, my hope is that among all the AI-infused dread, the am dash injects a streak of optimism into the conversation about the future of human writing.
Can you tell us more about your choices of Times New Human and Areal as the fonts?
There were a few typeface families in early discussions, but simplicity felt key. Typefaces every writer grew up with, honed their craft with, published their first book, article, journal with—so putting a human spin on Times New Roman and Arial felt right. On the design side of things, selecting these two crowd favourites was also an opportunity to explore how the am dash looks in both serif and sans serif fonts—something our senior designer Mollie Starr handled with exceptionally thorough and ever-thoughtful craft and care. You can take a look at her workflow here.
Were there any alternate names, symbols, or fonts you almost went with?
There were some initial doodles and sketches in the much-coveted notepad of Ant Melder. Including one that incorporated a kind of human heartbeat. See below. As for working titles, there were a few…but perhaps these are best left in the cosmos.
What do you hope is the future of the Am Dash?
World domination. We’ve been winking at Google, Adobe, Microsoft and Apple across the rollout, and would love to see this little glyph integrated universally across both digital and non-digital spaces, to give writers the opportunity to plant a human authorship flag in their work. With this comes the caveat, that at this stage, AI likely also has access to it. It’s a risky mission!
How would you feel if AI learned to use the Am Dash?
Conflicting emotions. On the one hand, our singular, rebellious glyph has been hijacked by our algorithmic usurper…but on the other hand, isn’t that the greatest compliment of all? In order to adequately reflect human writing as is its very nature, ChatGPT sought to include our punctuation mark, as the most human one of the lot. After all, what the am dash stands for extends beyond whether generative text can use it or not—it’s a rallying cry to use your great human brain and think before you write. It’s not just anti-AI, it’s anti-lazy!
Speaking more broadly to AI, how do you think it’s changed or evolved your process? And how did that change feel?
In the final stages of shaping my writing, I find it can offer a different way to express a certain thought or sentiment—a certain turn of phrase or sentence structure that I kinda dig. And I’ll store that in my memory bank for next time. I try to limit AI to small editorial leg ups like this; I also find this is where it is most effective at the moment.
Is there any part of your creative process you refuse to automate?
Some say AI is a great collaborator for brainstorm sessions…but I prefer to keep ChatGPT out of the room. After all, algorithms reference where we as thinkers have already been, it can never create something new, something that hasn’t been done. But we can. I think that’s worth protecting.
Have you adopted any philosophies around AI and its adoption? If so, do you think your personal philosophy will change over time?
I think a loose philosophy might be that AI should always be in service of the creative process, never in replacement of it. That line can feel blurry at times, but listening to your gut here usually helps. What’s more human than that?!
If you were to prescribe a metaphor to AI, what would it be? There’s a lot out there already (a collaborator, a tool, a copilot, an agent, a threat), but curious what yours would be.
AI is that slightly annoying networky person at the party that is constantly telling you how great you are in conversation, but is secretly stashing everything you say for later use.
What do you hope creative work looks like in five years? What do you predict it will look like in 5 years?
I would like to see a resurgence of deeply non-digital work both in aesthetic and language convention. Like most things that saturate the zeitgeist, they become tired and people start looking for whatever the opposite of that thing is. We’re already starting to see people recognise ChatGPT’s tone of voice, resulting in a shift to private online communities where real human conversations are had instead. I think it’d be cool to see this come across eventually in the work, too. Maybe your ad doesn’t have an AI-generated UFO in it, but you’ll be able to tell someone actually made it. And that counts for a lot I reckon.
And for fun, if the robot apocalypse does in fact come to fruition, what's one skill you have that will help you survive or thrive in a robot-led world?
I’m quick to let ChatGPT know if I think it has missed the mark, so honestly, I’m first on the chopping block. And Ant Melder reckons his ability to make the perfect 'tap-dripping' sound by flicking his cheek would be impressive enough to our robot overlords for them to keep him around for entertainment purposes for a while (until they sample it, get bored of it, and have no further use for him…).
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