I use AI. Not to replace my creative process, but as part of it. The same way I use a template as a starting point that I'll immediately abandon. Or reference images I'll respond to and then depart from. It's a tool. A fast one. Sometimes a surprisingly good one.

What AI cannot do is the thing that makes creative work actually matter: it cannot be present. It cannot sit in a room with a subject and feel the weight of what they're carrying. It cannot make a judgment call about what frame captures the truth of a moment. It doesn't know when something is authentic versus when something is technically correct but emotionally hollow.

That gap between technically correct and emotionally true is where I live as a filmmaker and creative director. And right now, no AI closes it.

What concerns me more than AI replacing creatives is AI making it easier for brands to produce high volumes of content that says absolutely nothing. We already had that problem. AI just made it cheaper and faster. The answer isn't to resist the tools. It's to be relentlessly committed to having something worth saying before you use them.

For small businesses and purpose-driven brands especially, this is actually a competitive advantage right now. While everyone else is generating content, you can be creating meaning. The bar for what feels human, specific, and real has never been lower to clear, because so much of what's being produced feels like it came from nowhere and is going nowhere.

That's where intentional creative work wins. Every time.