March 25, 2026

Artificially Intelligent, Actually Useful.

A Weekly AI Update So You Don't Have To Wing It

Is Direction the New Production?

This week's newsletter continues to explore AI's impact on the value of work. In software, developers went from writing code to orchestrating AI agent teams. In enterprise, the value migrated from knowing to discernment. And now, the creative sector is no longer valuing production speed; the competitive advantage is moving to vision and taste.

UK ad agencies lost 14% of staff in a single year, with junior roles hit hardest. This pattern is consistent: AI is absorbing the execution layer, and what remains is the ability to direct, judge, and decide. That’s the skill set that will matter for the next decade, whether you’re building software, running a business, or creating content.

If you’ve been reading this newsletter, you’ve seen this building. And in case you missed the last two issues, check out:
→ Orchestration Replaces Prompting
→ Discernment Replaces Knowledge.

87% of creators now use AI tools, with competitive advantage shifting decisively away from execution speed toward vision, taste, and creative direction.

UK ad agencies shed 14% of staff, with 19.2% decline among under-25 workers, signaling collapse in entry-level recruitment and traditional career ladder pathways.

C-suite consensus: creatives shift from “producers” to “directors” delegating execution to AI agents, and elevating strategic decision-making and vision work.

Creative Workers Become Directors

Executives from Salesforce, Autodesk, and Accenture confirmed the shift: creatives aren’t being replaced, their role is changing. Nancy Xu at Salesforce: workers move “from producers to more directors,” asking “What goals matter?” instead of “How do I execute?”

Salesforce’s research shows that the organizational impact is uneven and carries friction; AI lifts the bottom 50% toward average performance. Companies may hire fewer junior staff if AI handles entry-level execution work, reshaping career ladders and threatening the training pipeline.

Strategic Insight: The shift from “doer” to “decider” isn’t a role rename; it’s a competency reset. If you’ve built your career on execution speed, you’re now competing on vision clarity and orchestration discipline. That’s the new moat.

Read the Article →

87% of Creators Are Using AI

Artlist’s 6,500+ creator survey shows AI adoption is table stakes. Sixty-three percent of creators focus on commercial viability over execution. Speed has exploded with concepts visualized in seconds. Thirty-seven percent use AI for concept exploration, 26% for faster post-production. And still, one very important counter-trend stands out: audiences crave tangible, real-world experiences.

My Take: The democratization is real. Anyone can produce polished work. That’s not a threat if you have something worth polishing. Use AI for ideation, then design moments people can feel and talk about.

Read the Report →

The Entry-Level Crisis

UK ad agencies lost 14% of staff in 2025. The problem: only 43% of creative agencies hired graduates and apprentices, down from 56%. This isn’t C-suite replacement; it’s the elimination of the training ground where creative directors are built. Some analysts attribute this to post-pandemic normalization, but the pattern is clear: as execution work moves to AI, companies need fewer junior staff.

Strategic Takeaway: The real risk isn’t job loss today. It’s capability loss tomorrow. If you’re not hiring and training junior talent now, you won’t have experienced creative directors in five years. The ladder is breaking.

Read the Article →

Quick Hits

.Foundations

The 8 Best AI Image Generators in 2026

Zapier tested eight leading image generators head-to-head with identical prompts. ChatGPT leads on ease of use, Midjourney on aesthetic quality, and so on. The top models are all excellent now, so the decision isn’t which tool is best. It’s which tool fits the task.

.Video

If You’re Creative But Scared About AI, Watch This

Cinematographer Luc Forsyth argues that AI won’t displace creatives who bring human connection to their work. Audiences crave story, personal voice, and emotional resonance. That means the person with something to say is irreplaceable in a world saturated with AI.

.Deep Dive

The Paradox of Creativity in Generative AI

Peer-reviewed research shows AI exhibits fixation bias and limited cognitive flexibility. In other words, it produces variations on what it "knows"; it can't make lateral creative leaps. Taste, direction, and judgment can’t be automated; AI is a tool needing vision to point it.

Industry Developments

OpenAI Shuts Down Sora Video App

Only months after its launch, OpenAI is shuttering its standalone Sora video app. It topped the App Store after its September launch but drew copyright complaints and AI slop criticism. The lesson: consumer products don’t survive if the business model and compute economics don’t hold up.

Adobe Brings Agentic AI to Creative Suite

Firefly Custom Models are now in public beta, letting creators train AI generators on their own assets to maintain brand consistency. The company also introduced agentic AI assistants across Photoshop, Express, and Acrobat that transform conversational input into creative execution.

Alright, that’s a wrap for the week!

The creative industry is the latest sector to confirm what we’ve been seeing across software, enterprise operations, and professional services: AI absorbs execution, and the value migrates to direction, judgment, and taste. The job title changes, but the pattern doesn’t.

Also of note, when you cut junior roles because AI handles the entry-level work, you break the pipeline that builds tomorrow’s leaders. That’s not a creative industry problem. That’s a workforce planning problem. (And recently we reported on IBM tripling its entry-level hiring, perhaps in anticipation of this exact idea.)

The ability to decide what’s worth building, to catch what AI misses, and to bring the kind of judgment that doesn’t come from a model: this is becoming a dominant lever in the value chain. We called it discernment two weeks ago. This week, the creative sector calls it taste. Same skill, different label. And it’s the one that will matter most in the years ahead.

Thoughts?

Artificially Intelligent, Actually Useful. is brought to you by iS2 Digital
Your Software at the Speed of Change

Click here to subscribe, if you want to receive our newsletter directly.

Explore More Newsletters

April 1, 2026

Got a project in mind?
Tell us about it.

Let’s Talk

Artificially Intelligent, Actually Useful.

Creative Workers Become Directors

87% of Creators Are Using AI

The Entry-Level Crisis

Quick Hits

Industry Developments

Explore More Newsletters

The Commoditization of the Large Language Model

The Case for Smaller AI

The Age of Discernment

Got a project in mind?
Tell us about it.

Artificially Intelligent, Actually Useful.

Creative Workers Become Directors

87% of Creators Are Using AI

The Entry-Level Crisis

Quick Hits

Industry Developments

Never miss a post! Share it!

Better Business, Not Better Buzzwords

Explore More Newsletters

The Commoditization of the Large Language Model

The Case for Smaller AI

The Age of Discernment

Got a project in mind?Tell us about it.

Got a project in mind?
Tell us about it.