AI Adoption Outpaces Worker Trust in Creative Fields

Eighty-one percent of U.S. creative professionals surveyed have released content made with AI assistance, yet 62% say they’re very or extremely worried about relying too heavily on the technology at the expense of human creativity. That tension anchors a new report from Luma, a multimodal general intelligence platform, released at Brandweek. The survey included 760 people working across agencies, brands, production companies and freelance creative work.

The findings suggest widespread use hasn’t led to deep integration or unquestioned trust. Seventy-one percent said AI delivers more productivity benefits than drawbacks, while 40% said it improves both efficiency and creative quality. Access to tools isn’t the bottleneck: 72% rated their access as good or excellent. Training and workflow integration, however, have lagged behind.

The Adoption Gap

Organizations evaluated an average of 6.1 AI tools over the past year, adopted 4.3 and discontinued 2.9. More than half of respondents said their organizations have no formal process for evaluating and approving those tools. Many workers, then, must absorb new systems without a clear framework for deciding which ones deserve a place in their work.

The gap also shows up in outcomes. Among respondents categorized as “AI Leaders,” 78% had released video projects in which AI generated most or all of the content. Only 11% of “AI Laggards” had done the same. According to the report, leaders weren’t winning by using more tools. They integrated AI more deeply while keeping human oversight and creative direction in place.

Who Bears the Pressure

Agencies and brands want different things from the same technology. Fifty-five percent of agency respondents expect AI to justify higher fees because it expands output. By contrast, 53% of brand-side respondents expect their companies to cut agency spending as internal AI tools make more work possible in-house. That split matters to people who earn their living doing this work. When a client brings production back indoors, freelancers and smaller shops that once handled it can lose the contract.

Caroline Ingeborn, COO of Luma, framed the shift plainly. “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.” She added that “creatives are embracing AI’s potential, but they’re also sending a clear message: Creativity, taste, storytelling and judgment remain fundamentally human.”

Business Leaders Weigh In

The same caution appears in a separate effort to treat AI as a business decision, not a trend. A Withum-sponsored panel at the Orange County Executive Forum, titled “The Leadership Imperative: A New Playbook for Leading Through Change,” argued that effective leadership depends less on how quickly organizations adopt technology than on whether investments match business priorities and measurable outcomes. Adoption alone, the program said, doesn’t count as success.

David Coffaro, President & CEO of the Greater Irvine Chamber of Commerce, moderated the panel. Eric Gallagher, Partner at Withum and an audit partner with more than 25 years of experience, urged companies to start with the problem. “Instead of asking yourself which AI tool should we be investing in, perhaps the better question to ask is: ‘What business problems are we trying to solve here?’” Colin Fraser, Shareholder at Greenberg Traurig, pointed to where human costs can hide. “Financial results are necessarily a lagging indicator,” he said, urging leaders to watch newer customers and the people their best employees are considering leaving for.

Fraser also warned about structural risk. Contracts written when a company was small can create problems involving intellectual property, liability and data security as the business grows. “The better process is to evaluate that on a periodic basis, not just leave it to the last minute.” He cautioned that AI can replace thinking instead of amplifying talent. “It’s not their ideas that are being presented, it is the AI’s ideas and they’re not that interesting – everyone else already has them.”

The Withum program recommended that companies build reliable data sources, governance guidelines and leadership alignment before scaling AI. Pilot results based on test data may not reflect real operating conditions, and inconsistent metrics can derail expansion.

Why This Matters:

The numbers point to a workforce being asked to adapt faster than the institutions around it can manage. Most creative professionals have already used AI in released work, yet most say their organizations lack a formal process for deciding which tools belong there. When the people producing content are the last to be consulted about what AI should do, the burden of change falls on those with the least say. Clear evaluation standards, transparent decision-making and training for working professionals are public-minded and organizational safeguards. They can keep the technology’s benefits from concentrating at the top while costs ripple down to freelancers, smaller agencies and employees who never signed off on the change.