In a political environment where opinions about AI futures diverge wildly into disasters and utopias, we set out to offer a grounded perspective on what AI means to creatives and professionals today. As creatives, researchers and strategists ourselves, we wanted to understand how our peers in the field were thinking about AI. Is this technology that everyone is talking about really that impactful? What is the evidence? We conducted in-depth, semi-structured interviews with researchers, strategists, marketers and creatives in tech and followed these up with a survey of almost 500 professionals. Our interviewees ranged from award-winning established tech commentators to freelancers and junior prompt engineers.
The result is a report which presents the nuanced reality under all the AI hype. This report is less concerned with opinions about the far-off future when nanobots heal all our infirmities or AI algorithms run for office. It presents concrete day-to-day evidence about how AI is changing everything today (and where things seem pretty much the same).
We found that although 75% of tech professionals claim to use AI tools on a daily basis, less than 15% are afraid it will replace them. In our report we describe the differences in AI use between large companies and startups, explore democratizing effects of AI, and share what we learned about how professionals navigate risk and disclosure of AI use to clients. Our report discusses the skills that will be most in demand in an AI-permeated future, from critical thinking to curation and creativity. Right now, creatives and tech professionals see AI as the latest addition in a growing toolset instead of a replacement for human ingenuity.
You can find the link to the full report here.
