I can’t lie — how fast AI is changing our industry is scary.

As a Gen-Z, it’s the first time I’ve felt genuinely outpaced by technology. Not just in keeping up, but in wondering if there’s even room for me in what comes next.

It’s a strange feeling — watching something evolve so quickly it starts to make your creative work feel… irrelevant. I imagine it’s what people felt during the industrial revolution, when machines didn’t just change how things were made, but whether people’s skills still mattered at all. Technology didn’t ask permission before arriving — it just rewrote the rules.

I’m not saying people can’t be creative with AI. If anything, AI is extending the reach of our imagination. It’s opening up new ways to think creatively. But it’s also shifting the balance — rewarding the visionaries and strategic thinkers, while eroding the craft of the actual making. The joy of producing something with your hands, your eye, your instinct. That’s what feels at risk.

We’re blending art with hyper-capitalist logic. Creative work is increasingly being optimised for speed, efficiency, and scale. Create → sell → optimise → repeat. And yes — AI makes it easier for more people to create. That’s powerful. But what happens to the people who’ve built their livelihoods around this work?

The models, photographers, stylists, editors, producers, illustrators — and so many others. The ones without huge followings, but with real skill. The ones already just about getting by — now expected to learn entirely new tools just to survive. Some doors are opening — others are shifting in ways we don’t fully understand yet.

We’re already seeing AI-generated fashion models appear in campaigns for major brands — often as digital twins of real people. At first, it feels ethical. Efficient. But as Sinéad Bovell put it recently, it may just be the start of something more systemic — where representation quietly becomes replacement. And if brands can automate everything from the photoshoot to the model to the retouching, what happens to the creative workers behind all of it?

Part of me welcomes the shift. The creative industry has been gatekept. It needs a reset. But what I see coming isn’t a more open system — it’s one where the tools are open, but the opportunity is shrinking. I think we’ll lose the middle. The working creatives who’ve held this industry together. The ones who made it all happen quietly, consistently — without fanfare.

The wildest part? I’ve always seen myself as a creative technologist. I founded Contact to help people get booked, get paid, and build sustainable careers doing what they love. I live at the intersection of art and software.

And yet — I feel stuck in the innovator’s dilemma.

AI is moving fast. The industry is chasing it. But the last thing I want is to build tools that make the humans on our platform redundant.

There’s a lot of excitement around protecting creative IP — digital twins, licensing tools, new ownership models. I think those are real opportunities. But do I believe they’ll provide meaningful income to the long tail of creators? Honestly, probably not. Not on their own.

And beyond protecting what we make, I think we need to protect how we make. The process. The weirdness. The rituals. The flow state. The mess. That’s the part worth keeping.

When I started Contact, I imagined a world where AI would help us do more of what we love — not replace it. It would take care of the admin. The boring stuff. The overhead.

But now it’s doing the things we love to do. And I can’t help but question where we’re heading.

I’m not here to fight the tide. But maybe we don’t need to ride it blindly either. Maybe there’s value in pausing. In asking ourselves: what’s worth protecting?

I don’t have the answers yet. But I do believe this: creative thinking will only become more valuable. Imagination is still our superpower. But we need to hold space for the process too — not just the product. Because if we lose touch with how we make things, we risk losing a part of why we make them at all.