1. Spend hours and $ hiring a graphic designer to make one
2. Spend hours learning/doing it myself
3. Spend time searching the internet looking for images that aren't copyrighted, or spend time finding an image I like and spend time and $ figuring out how to pay/license it
4. Spend a few seconds prompting AI
I know this comes off snarky but it's been decades now and we've got to be the change we want to see in the world. "business person at the office" banner image is completely useless.
But I've found a pretty interesting middle-ground/sweet spot (mainly with less technical audiences) where a nice graphic can really improve attention and retention, especially on a slide deck. For a recent example, I wrote about the importance of passwords for a "security awareness" training (the audience here are people in Pakistan who have only recently started using the internet). To help illustrate/reinforce the idea that if somebody gets your password they can "hack" you, I generated some colorful images of hackers, computer security, and even one with a person being arrested (in that section I was describing the law that could hold them accountable for breach of others personal information if their negligence allowed an adversary to gain access to the system). Personally to me it's fluff, but I ran a small (and not very scientific) A/B test with the first and second group and the version with the graphics was shockingly better at it's goal of raising awareness.
That being said, visual input and aesthetic are deeply intrinsic human things and expecting us to move beyond that is very unrealistic.
The best we can do is optimise the IG methodology and/or use open, perpetually royalty free images and clipart for illustration.
I’m not sure gen ai even helps with increasing productivity yet - since tons of existing tools and services do all the same things without having much of this ai (ai chatbot better than a web search? gimme a break…)