Is AI Killing Creative Jobs?
It's not
Let’s get this out of the way: I use AI every day at work. Not because I have to — because it works.
When I graduated with a degree in visual communications in 2023, I didn’t expect to be automating parts of my job a year later. But here I am — designing, editing, writing, and using AI to do it all faster and (usually) better. I work as the creative lead for a national nonprofit, and there’s always more to do than there are hours in the day. So when I built a chatbot that cut our email campaign turnaround from two business days to two hours, it wasn’t some sci-fi experiment. It was survival.
The truth is, my workflow is way more productive now than it was even six months ago. I don’t dread Photoshop anymore — the AI tools in there have completely changed what I feel capable of doing. That used to be the part of my job I felt weakest at. Now, it’s something I’m proud of. That shift didn’t happen because AI made me a designer. It happened because I already was one — and AI just gave me better tools.
So no, I don’t think AI is killing creative jobs. I think it’s changing them. The people who are adapting — learning, experimenting, building — they’re thriving. The people who are scared of AI, or worse, trying to use it to fake expertise they don’t have… they’re the ones struggling.
That’s probably my biggest frustration: when people use AI to make “creative work” without putting any real creative thought into it. Just dumping a prompt into a generator, downloading the first result, and calling it done. That’s not design. That’s not communication. That’s just shortcutting your way to something that looks finished but says nothing.
AI can’t replace taste. It can’t replace judgment. It can’t know your audience or feel the difference between “good enough” and “this hits.” It can help you get to the idea. It can’t be the idea.
So I guess my take is this: AI isn’t killing creative jobs. But it might be exposing which ones were never that creative to begin with.
And for the rest of us? The ones actually in it — trying, learning, building, failing, figuring it out — AI is a tool. A damn good one. But the work is still ours.