AI Adoption Outpaces Trust in Business, Survey Finds

Eighty-one percent of U.S. creative professionals have released content made with AI assistance, but most aren’t comfortable handing over the keys. That’s the central finding of Luma’s inaugural “State of Creative Professionals and AI: 2026” report, released at Brandweek and based on a survey of 760 respondents across agencies, brands, production companies and freelance work. Sixty-two percent said they were very or extremely concerned about relying too heavily on AI at the expense of human creativity.

The numbers point to a workforce that adopted the tools faster than it built guardrails around them. Seventy-one percent said AI creates more benefits than drawbacks for productivity, and 40% said it improves both efficiency and creative quality. Seventy-two percent rated their access to AI tools as good or excellent. Training and workflow integration lagged, however. 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 had no formal process for evaluating and approving those tools.

Where the Money Goes

The report draws a sharp line between companies that use AI and companies that use it well. Among respondents categorized as “AI Leaders,” 78% had released video projects in which AI generated most or all of the content, compared with 11% of “AI Laggards.” Luma found that leaders weren’t winning by buying more software. They integrated AI more deeply while keeping human oversight and creative direction in place.

The report also exposed a quiet tension between the two sides of the advertising business. Fifty-five percent of agency respondents expected AI to justify higher fees because of increased output. Fifty-three percent of brand-side respondents expected their companies to cut agency spending as internal AI tools made more work possible in-house. Agencies are betting AI raises what they can charge, while clients paying those bills are betting it lowers what they’ll pay.

Leadership Over Technology

An Orange County panel reached similar conclusions from a different angle. Eric Gallagher, a partner at Withum and an audit partner with more than 25 years of experience, urged businesses to start with the problem rather than the product. “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?’” he said. Withum’s paid program added that adoption alone doesn’t measure success. Companies should decide in advance how time savings, cost reductions or added capacity will turn into measurable value.

David Coffaro, President & CEO of the Greater Irvine Chamber of Commerce, moderated the panel. He opened by describing a divide between strong Wall Street economic indicators and uncertainty on Main Street. Colin Fraser, a shareholder at Greenberg Traurig who handles complex business disputes, warned that outdated contracts create real exposure involving intellectual property, liability and data security. “That’s where we see lawsuits arise,” he said, urging companies to review their agreements periodically rather than at the last minute.

Gallagher pointed to a structural warning sign. When one person keeps decision-making concentrated in their hands, it often signals that an organization has outgrown its setup. “Along with growth comes complexity,” he said, “and at some moment the organization is going to start to scale, and that scalability will not really match the decision-making power of a single individual.”

Fraser offered a blunt assessment of how AI is sometimes used. Used properly, it amplifies the talent a company already has. Used lazily, it becomes a substitute for thinking. “It’s not their ideas that are being presented,” he said, “it is the AI’s ideas and they’re not that interesting – everyone else already has them because they’re all using the same AI tools.”

Why This Matters:

The gap between adoption and governance carries a price tag companies will eventually have to pay. Organizations that evaluated 6.1 tools, adopted 4.3 and then discontinued 2.9 are spending money on software that isn’t delivering, while more than half lack the formal approval process that could catch the waste early. For a business owner, that’s not a technology problem. It’s a capital allocation problem, and it lands squarely on the balance sheet. The agency-versus-brand split also points to a market correction underway: if 53% of brand respondents plan to bring work in-house, agencies that can’t prove their value will lose contracts to competitors that can. Fraser’s warning about outdated contracts reminds companies that legal exposure grows quietly alongside success. The companies that come out ahead will treat AI as one tool among many, measure it against the same hard standards as any other investment, and keep human judgment firmly in charge.