I was chatting with a friend over the weekend about work, AI, and how it’s affecting our jobs, workflows, businesses, everything. We talked about how incredible the technology is, but also how strangely quiet and uneasy the industry feels right now. Some of it’s economic, budgets are tight, timelines are stretched, risk appetites are shrinking. But I think some of it goes deeper. There’s this growing sense that a mythical AI solution is just around the corner. A design or creative unicorn. A golden wand. Something that will make branding quicker, cheaper and entirely automated, so why invest now? Why engage a creative team when, in a few months, the tech might “do it all”? I know it sounds logical, but it’s also… a bit misguided.
We’re All in Limbo.
Let’s be honest, we’re all kinda waiting. The rumblings of AI have become deafening. The tools are everywhere. The headlines are relentless. But I don’t think anyone really knows what we’re waiting for. A game-changing release? A magical new workflow? A world where brand building becomes as simple as typing a prompt? It feels like we’re all holding our breath. Clients are hesitating to commit. Creatives are questioning their roles. Everyone is stuck, and it’s paralysing.
Most design studios are already using AI, not as a replacement for talent, but as a tool. We use it to explore directions faster, visualise ideas sooner, get past blank pages more efficiently. But the real work? The work that moves people, shifts perception, drives business that still requires a team of thinkers, feelers, and tastemakers who know how to translate ideas into clarity. AI can generate a logo. It can write a paragraph. But it can’t yet hold a nuanced conversation about your business model, your oddly specific market positioning, or the tension between what your customers want and what your product actually delivers. It doesn’t get your founder’s gut instinct. It doesn’t see the opportunity your competitors have missed. That takes humans. Strategic ones. Curious ones. Ones who know how to ask uncomfortable questions and turn the answers into something that resonates.
The danger for brands holding out for the AI unicorn is that they risk trading momentum for the illusion of a shortcut. And while they delay building, their (mostly larger) competitors keep moving. They keep showing up, keep testing, keep refining. The gap quietly widens. My (real) fear is that design and creativity are being undervalued, not because they’ve lost their power, but because they now look easy. And we know how that goes.
Quick, cheap, easy… usually means crap.
From the studio side, we feel it too. The drop in urgency. The shift in trust. The sense that design is drifting from being a core business tool to “a nice-to-have.” Not because clients don’t care, but because AI has created a kind of fog around what value even looks like now.
And still, many studios are adapting. We’re not standing still. We’re using AI in smart, practical ways, to move faster, to test ideas, to break through creative blocks. But we’re also watching something deeper erode: the belief that experience, judgement, and taste still matter. That good work takes time. That clarity is earned, not auto-generated. That the difference between “done” and “right” is real and still worth the effort.
So here we are. In limbo.
Everyone waiting. Everyone slightly nervous to move. But here’s the thing: the AI unicorn probably isn’t coming. At least not in the way people expect. Yes, the tools will improve, that’s exciting. But they won’t replace strategy. They won’t make hard decisions for you. They won’t tell a better story than the one rooted in real, human understanding. The longer we wait for magic, the more we drift from what actually builds brands: ideas with substance, made by people who know what they’re doing.
And that’s the thing. The real opportunity isn’t in the future. It’s now. It always has been.