The Great Shift in Creative AI Is Underway

BY Jean-François Dommerc President and Digital Strategist

The State of AI in Design 2026 report offers a fascinating look at the rapid transformation of creative professions in the age of artificial intelligence. It is a thought-provoking read that raises as many opportunities as questions about the true role of human expertise in creative and strategic work.

Over the past year, something has changed in the creative industries. You can feel it in agencies, product teams, marketing departments, and even in conversations between colleagues and clients. Artificial intelligence is no longer a topic of curiosity or an experimental playground reserved for tech enthusiasts. It has become part of the daily workflow of designers, writers, strategists and developers.

The recently released State of AI in Design 2026 report confirms this very clearly. Designers are now using AI every day. They are exploring more ideas, building projects faster, producing content in minutes and, in many cases, generating functional code they would not have created before. Some teams are moving directly from an idea to an interactive experience without ever producing a static mockup. The pace of change is genuinely impressive.

And to be fair, the benefits are real. AI dramatically reduces the time spent on repetitive tasks. It accelerates ideation. It helps teams test concepts more quickly. It also gives many professionals a new sense of autonomy. Designers who never touched code can now build working prototypes. Small teams can accomplish work that once required multiple specialized resources.

Yet while reading the report, one thought kept coming back to me. The more powerful AI becomes, the more we realize that true value was never found solely in execution.

We are currently living through a peculiar moment where many people are beginning to confuse access to a tool with genuine expertise. Because it is now possible to generate an image, a logo, a piece of content or an interface in a matter of seconds, some have started to believe that years of experience, judgment and human understanding have somehow become secondary. As if the ability to produce something quickly automatically meant the ability to do it well.

Producing is not the same as understanding

An artificial intelligence can generate a convincing interface without understanding the human behaviours behind it. It can write persuasive content without grasping the nuances of a brand, a mission or an organizational context. It can suggest a strategy without understanding the political tensions, human dynamics and operational realities that truly shape a project.

This is where we begin to see a certain kind of drift emerge. Not because the tools are flawed, quite the opposite. They are extraordinarily powerful. The challenge is that they can sometimes create a false sense of competence. Organizations accelerate production without fully clarifying their direction. Users overestimate their abilities because the results “look good.” Teams start confusing speed with relevance.

It is a fascinating phenomenon to observe. Never before has it been so easy to produce so much content, so many visuals and so many ideas. Yet there are times when depth does not seem to be progressing at the same pace.

The report raises another particularly interesting point: the more AI advances, the more valuable deeply human qualities become. Judgment. Taste. Nuance. The ability to ask the right questions. The ability to understand context and recognize what is truly relevant. In a world where anyone can quickly generate something that is “good enough,” real differentiation begins to emerge elsewhere.

The way we work is changing, but expertise is not disappearing. For decades, much of the value of creative professions was tied to technical mastery and execution. Today, execution is becoming increasingly accessible. As a result, value is gradually shifting toward direction, coherence, vision and discernment. The work is becoming less about producing every individual element and more about creating meaning.

Ultimately, this is probably the defining challenge of the years ahead. Because AI does not replace expertise. It amplifies it. In the hands of experienced professionals, it becomes an extraordinary lever for innovation and impact. In less experienced hands, it can just as easily accelerate poor decisions, shortcuts and generic thinking.

And as these tools continue to grow more powerful, that difference is only going to become more visible.