AI Work Spreads as Agencies and Brands Clash Over Fees

Creative professionals are releasing AI-assisted work, while agencies and brands disagree over who should capture the savings and added output. In Luma’s survey of 760 U.S. creative professionals, 81% said they had released content created with AI assistance, and 62% were very or extremely concerned that reliance on AI could come at the expense of human creativity.

Work Adopted, Control Unsettled

Respondents worked at agencies, brands and production companies, or as freelance creatives. The report, “State of Creative Professionals and AI: 2026,” found that broad use hasn’t brought deep integration or unquestioned trust.

Seventy-one percent said AI creates more benefits than drawbacks for productivity. Forty percent said it improves both efficiency and creative quality. Seventy-two percent rated their access to AI tools as good or excellent, but training and workflow integration lagged.

Organizations surveyed had evaluated an average of 6.1 AI tools, adopted 4.3 and discontinued 2.9 over the past year. More than half of respondents said their organizations didn’t have a formal process for evaluating and approving AI tools.

“The question for creative teams is no longer whether to use AI. It’s where AI creates value and where human judgment should stay firmly in control,” said Caroline Ingeborn, COO of Luma. She said creativity, taste, storytelling and judgment remain fundamentally human.

Who Captures the Added Output

The report found a split over how AI changes the commercial relationship between agencies and clients. Fifty-five percent of agency respondents expected AI to justify higher fees because of increased creative output and capabilities. On the brand side, 53% expected their organizations to reduce agency spending as internal AI tools made more work possible in-house.

The same productivity claim sits on opposite sides of a bill: agencies expect to charge more for expanded output, while brands expect to buy less external work. The report doesn’t say which side will prevail.

Among respondents categorized as “AI Leaders,” 78% had released video projects in which AI generated most or all of the content. Among “AI Laggards,” the figure was 11%. The report said leaders weren’t necessarily succeeding by using more tools; it linked their approach to deeper integration, while retaining human oversight and creative direction.

The figures show adoption reaching released work, not just internal trials. Yet the survey also records concerns about diminished human creativity and gaps in training and approval processes. Companies have adopted multiple tools, while more than half of respondents say formal evaluation procedures are missing.

Ingeborn said the question for creative teams is where AI creates value and where human judgment should remain in control. The report’s findings put productivity, creative quality, agency fees and brand spending into the same dispute over how AI-generated capacity will be used and paid for.