Creative job losses are rising – and we need to talk about it

As a journalist, I've had a lot of press releases and other communications lately about how AI is "democratising creativity". And I won't lie, I can see the logic in that. Most of us have found that tools ranging from ChatGPT to Adobe Firefly Boards have helped us out in some way or other (see here how AI is impacting graphic design).

But there's a very big flipside to all of this. Let's not forget that, right now, the creative industries are having their guts ripped out by artificial intelligence. And the worst part? We're all just standing around watching it happen.

To take just one example, WPP – yes, that WPP, the advertising behemoth that once symbolised British creative dominance – recently axed 7,000 jobs. Seven thousand. That's not downsizing; that's a creative apocalypse.

Losing our humanity

But is this wise? To my mind, the advertising industry has always been built on a fundamental truth: humans buy from humans. We respond to stories, emotions, and that indefinable spark of creativity that makes us stop scrolling. And that can't be faked (as Will Smith just found out).

Remember one of the best ads ever, that Cadbury gorilla drumming to Phil Collins? Pure human madness that somehow worked perfectly. Try explaining that brief to an algorithm.

Yet here we are, reading Meta's Mark Zuckerberg promise in July that businesses won't need "any creative, any targeting, any measurement" because the AI software Meta is developing will handle everything.

This isn't just happening in the advertising world, either. The tech industry has shed over 22,000 jobs in 2025, with a shocking 16,084 layoffs in February alone. Microsoft, Google, Amazon and Meta have all been slicing through workforces whilst simultaneously investing billions in the AI tech making jobs obsolete.

Meanwhile, the IMF predicts that AI will affect 40% of jobs and probably worsen inequality. Anecdotally, most freelancers have seen demand drop due to AI, including myself. Which is not surprising when illustrators, copywriters, designers and others, who've spent years honing their craft, are being told their skills are now available in a software package for $20 a month.

Already dealing with late payments and low fees, freelancers now face competing with algorithms that don't need sleep, don't demand payment, and definitely don't complain about unreasonable deadlines.

The lie of democratisation

Tech companies love to frame this carnage as "democratisation." I think a better word, though, might be "homogenisation". When everyone has access to the same AI tools, trained on the same datasets, we don't get diversity – we get a creative monoculture.

Yes AI can churn out perfectly adequate content at lightning speed. But in the process, it's creating a tsunami of forgettable mediocrity.

Indeed, every time I look at Facebook ads these days, I feel like I'm drowning in AI-generated imagery that looks like it was designed by committee in a parallel universe where humans have never experienced joy; glossy, idealised, and slightly plasticky looking.

Rage against the beige

So what do we do? Well, perhaps we stop pretending this is inevitable. After all, every AI implementation is a choice, every job cut is a decision. We can choose differently.

Should creatives start to get militant? The Hollywood writers' strike showed that organised resistance works; they secured protections against AI replacement. Maybe artists, illustrators, designers, photographers and others need to fight to similar safeguards... before there's nothing left to protect.

Because make no mistake: 2025 will be remembered as the year creativity went to war with artificial intelligence – and lost the first battle.

We're not just losing jobs. We're losing the messy, unpredictable, gloriously human process of creation itself. Unless we act now, we'll be living in a world where creativity is just another task for machines to optimise. And nobody's going to be drumming along to that.