Have Your Views On Ai Changed Heres What Our Creative Community Had To Say

Creative Boom: Insight Digital Have your views on AI changed? Here's what our creative community had to say A year of rapid change has left creative professionals divided, defiant and curious. Here's what members of The Studio actually think about AI in May 2026. Written By: Tom May 7 May 2026 Image licensed via Alamy The conversation around AI in the creative industries was never going to stay still. A year ago, the dominant mood was anxiety; a fear that tools trained on other people's work were coming for jobs, identities and the very idea of what it means to make something. Twelve months on, and the picture is considerably more complicated.

It's not that the anxiety has disappeared; it hasn't. But it's been joined by something else: a grudging recognition that this technology is now woven into the fabric of everyday creative life, not to mention life in general, whether people want it there or not. That shift was palpable at OFFF Barcelona this year. As our report outlined, the conversations that mattered weren't so much about whether AI was coming as about how to respond to it now that it has. Creative Boom has always aimed to reflect the full breadth of the community rather than advocate for any single position.

In this light, ignoring the arrival of AI would be a bit like ignoring the home computer in the 1990s or pretending Photoshop wasn't reshaping the industry in the 2000s. Possible, but not particularly honest. So we asked members of our private community, The Studio, directly: has your view shifted in the past year? Their answers suggest a community that's thinking harder about this than the loudest voices on either side might suggest. "I'm not willing to become dispossessed for the sake of abundance" For some, the past year has simply reinforced what they already believed, and there's no shame in that.

Studio member Todd Walker, for instance, remains immovable. "Nothing about why it's a nonstarter has changed," he says. "Still built on stolen art. Still an ecological disaster. Still putting money in the pockets of people bent on destroying society. Still deskilling and wiping out people's livelihoods." Brand voice copywriter Jonathan Wilcock puts his opposition in similarly uncompromising terms. "I'm now even more opposed to using it for my thinking, writing or editing," he says.

He recalls how a line from a recent conference talk beautifully summed up his thoughts: "I am not willing to become dispossessed for the sake of abundance." Illustrator and author Juliana Salcedo hasn't changed her mind either, although she has changed how she frames her opposition. "I no longer see it as an individual fight," she explains. "I now see it more as an adaptation all actors affected by this massive copyright theft, especially policymakers, need to tackle. Because these companies will funnel all profits from everyone else.

They have in the past; have a look at what they did to the once powerful legacy media." Trying it, finding it wanting Not everyone, though, has completely stayed away from AI. Some have put the tools through their paces on real commercial work and come back with a clear-eyed assessment of where they currently fall short. Sandrine Bascouert, a photo retoucher and creative artworker, recently used generative AI tools, including Gemini 3 and Flux Kontext within Photoshop, on a high-stakes portrait retouching job for a major brand. For her, the experience was instructive.

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The article addresses significant shifts in the creative community's perception of AI, which is highly relevant to brand strategy professionals navigating these changes, though discussions around AI in creativity are becoming more common.