00
Introduction
DEAR CREATIVES, WELCOME TO THE ERA OF AI
Same job title... triple the pace and expectations? Welcome to the AI era.
There’s no doubt, it comes with its challenges. But challenges often open new doors—and creative leaders know this better than anyone.
Same job title... triple the pace and expectations?
Welcome to the AI era. There’s no doubt, it comes with its challenges. But challenges often open new doors—and creative leaders know this better than anyone.
According to Superside’s Overcommitted Report, 93% of creative leaders believe AI will improve design quality, and 96% agree it will help teams move faster. By clearing the clutter, making space for exploration and expanding possibilities, AI is already transforming the creative landscape in exciting ways.
Despite this potential, adoption is still one of the biggest hurdles for creative leaders to overcome, which explains why only 2% have fully integrated AI into workflows.
From legal and brand concerns to personal fears, enterprise teams face their fair share of friction when advocating for
AI integration.
And on a personal level? Just knowing where to start can keep you standing still.
That’s what you’ll get out of this guide: A starting point.
But more than that, a blueprint for updating how you think, collaborate and create to not just survive, but (dare we say) thrive in this new reality. Plus, the tools you need to get buy-in along the way.
The struggle stops here. And the future of creativity in the AI era? It starts with you.
chapter one
expectations
BEYOND THE MARVELOUS MIRAGE
In conversation with Júlio Aymoré, Group Creative Director
of Generative AI at Superside LAST-MINUTE PRESSURE ISN'T NEW
While AI has accelerated the pace of creative work it has also raised expectations.
Last-minute pressure is not new; creative teams are used to being inundated with urgent requests from other departments. What’s changed is that perceptions of what AI unlocks can make near-instant turnaround feel like an easy ask. That’s why 85% of creative leaders say they’ve seen executive expectations shift because of AI.
The prospect of generating images and video 40-90% faster is appealing to everyone, not just executives. In a world where 78% of creative leaders feel burnt out and
76% say they can’t meet demand, we all want to do great work, and do it faster.
“There’s a lot of AI smoke and mirrors, just like with any new tech that people are excited about. Managers and leaders are expecting a magic solution, but it's not
that easy.”
There are misplaced expectations about what AI can actually do—not in a year or decade, but in real workflows today. “The most exciting AI announcements often don’t yet even have practical applications, because they’re in the research or experimentation phase,” says Júlio Aymoré, Group Creative Director of Generative AI at Superside.
And capabilities that do exist, like multi-agent workflows, aren’t simple to master. It takes effort and commitment to find AI applications that will save time and elevate results, day to day.
“We’re creating a new kind of burnout”
That’s the crux of the issue: time and resources aren’t infinite. If teams’ plates are already overflowing, when are they supposed to discover these high-impact AI use cases?
That’s why our research has found that while half of creative teams are experimenting with AI, just 2% have fully integrated it into their workflows, and over 50% listed lack of expertise and workflow integration as their biggest barriers to AI adoption.
“People can’t work and experiment at the same time.
We need to lower expectations—not by compromising quality, but by giving people time and space to get used to this technology,” says Júlio.
Many teams are expected to produce at an AI-enabled speed, but the tools and workflows to make that possible often aren’t yet available, despite what many think. “We’re creating a new kind of burnout,” says Júlio. “It’s a human problem, not a technology problem.”
But this is a period of transition, offering both challenges and opportunities. If leaders navigate it well, they’ll be rewarded not just with faster work, but better-quality output, more consistently.
SURVIVAL TIPS TO MANAGE AI EXPECTATIONS
Here’s how Júlio Aymoré sets teams up for success before they’ve even started:
1. GET SPECIFIC ABOUT HOW YOU'LL USE AI (AND HOW YOU WON'T)
“Leaders may want to apply AI to every aspect of their business. But where can it truly make the biggest difference? What can differentiate you, and make you more competitive?”
Identify one or two high-impact areas where you’ll start applying AI. This shouldn’t be a top-down exercise! Ask your creative team where they’re already using AI, where it’s helping so far, and what existing friction points it could possibly address.
2. ALLOCATE EXPERIMENTATION TIME
“As with any new skill, you need to invest time to get familiar and understand what AI can achieve. This is something you only learn by doing.”
Don’t ask overloaded teams to find even more time to experiment. With dedicated learning time, teams can both uncover valuable use cases and discover what tools can’t do. Use these findings to validate the strategy you decided on in step one, and be prepared to rework based on outcomes.
3. LET THE EXPERTS OVERSEE THEIR OWN ZONE OF COMPETENCE
“I like to ask my team to do things that I’m also familiar with, so I can guide them in a meaningful way. Otherwise, it’s too easy to delegate without full knowledge and create unfair expectations.”
Assign managers to oversee experimentation in areas where they have expertise, like video or social media. Because they speak the same language as the team members they’re assisting, it will be much easier to understand their doubts, wins, and growing pains. They’ll also be able to communicate their team’s experience back to other leads more effectively.
At Superside, Júlio’s AI plan has two components: an AI R&D team that explores potential workflows, and dedicated weekly time for hundreds of Superside creatives to learn, experiment, and grow. “We see this time as an investment in the future,” says Júlio. “The only thing that matters is how AI can support our human creative team.”
According to Júlio, the key is to foster an inspiring atmosphere, not a fearful one. After all, working more efficiently is something to celebrate! When teams feel supported, respected, and listened to, they’ll be excited about tools that can help them spend more time on the high-impact creative work they truly love.
“If your team is excited, you’re halfway to success. When people are motivated, invested, and optimistic about the future, incredible things happen.”
“The only thing that matters is how AI can support our human creative team.”
Survival tip #406:
NOT ALL
EXPERIMENTS
PAY OFF
MULTI-AGENT FLOW FOR VIDEO PRODUCTION
Watch Júlio walk us through this workflow in action at our recent Crunch Mode virtual summit.
See Júlio's favorite AI workflow in action
Júlio built a multi-agent workflow in Weavy to generate ready-to-use content from a single campaign brief. Here, it generates social media video content to promote a clothing brand.
Each agent contains a multi-step AI process. For example, the Clothes Swap Agent turns the product image into a text prompt, which it feeds into another specialized AI tool to update the clothing pictured.
- Brief Interpreter Agent: analyzes campaign brief, determining goals, aesthetic vision, and what kind of content needs to be generated.
- Image Prompt Agent: translates the results into prompts for creating campaign images.
- Image Generation Agent: creates images from the generated prompts following the brand style.
- Clothes Swap Agent: updates clothing in images using real photographs of brand’s garments.
- Camera Angle Agent: creates multiple poses/variations of the updated images.
- Layout Composer Agent: adds campaign text and branding on top of the images.
- Video Generation Agent: animates the images into 5-second video clips.
- Audio Video Editor Agent: stitches clips together, adds music generated in campaign style, and upscales to correct dimensions for social media.
chapter two
adoption
AWAKEN THE DORMANT POTENTIAL
In conversation with Jessica Rosenberg, Head of Brand at AirOps Many creative leaders feel pressured to be AI experts, leading their teams to a bold, AI-native future. There’s only one problem: that’s impossible. Even a single workflow can use three or more AI tools that need to be vetted, approved, purchased, and learned.
Every week, new AI features and tools hit the market, and there’s no way to go in-depth on all of them. While mapping out adoption, leaders face the added challenge of managing internal resistance, much of it rooted in legitimate concerns. That includes everything from legal and brand concerns to personal fears and anxieties.
According to Jessica Rosenberg, Head of Brand at AirOps, the way to overcome these challenges, secure buy-in, and upskill teams to thrive in this new world comes down to two things: curiosity over fear and adaptability over perfection.
Adaptability over perfection
Go narrow when planning AI adoption
Rather than trying to be an expert in everything, focus on experimenting with just a few tools, in the areas most ripe for acceleration and improvement. Typically, that looks like speeding up simple processes so creatives have more time to go deep and think big.
“It’s less about being an expert in every single tool and feature, and more about building a culture of experimentation on your team. Try things, share learnings, and be honest about what works and what doesn’t.”
For example, when Jessica’s company rebranded, they didn’t lean on AI for their big-picture vision.
But post-rebrand, they’re using tools like Midjourney and Runway to quickly produce creative, like blog illustrations, in line with new brand standards. “AI can accelerate execution, but it can’t replace intuition or insight. Not yet,” she says.
Stay curious about AI ethics
Ethical concerns are another major barrier to adoption. But unfortunately, there are no set-in-stone answers.
As teams explore implementation, here are a few best practices:
- Ask critical questions when evaluating AI tools. Does the tool’s training data infringe on existing IP? Will material entered into the tool become part of its training set?
- Reach a decision on when, or if, use of AI will be disclosed. There’s no one right answer yet; some studies show that disclosure can erode trust, while others claim it’s essential to build it.
- Stay curious—keep up to date on AI ethics, read about how the conversation is developing, so you’re equipped to make informed decisions
Collaborative upskilling
Carefully planned upskilling initiatives are the only way to drive adoption. Normalize that everyone is learning together and no one’s job is in danger. In fact, you’re opening up new creative possibilities that didn’t exist before.
Emphasize to teams that collaboration is still paramount, and that’s something AI will never be able to automate. Communication, connecting ideas, evoking feelings and making shared, nuanced decisions is crucial to great creative work, whether or not AI tools are being used.
If creative teams can brave the heat of AI adoption, they have the chance to broaden their skill set without sacrificing their specializations. Specialization is still currency for creatives, especially if they lead work or shape brand identity. But AI enables teams to bring more skills into their repertoire, lowering the barrier to entry because they speed up execution.
“AI amplifies the T-shaped skill set. Go deep in one core area, but stay curious and capable across others. On my team we have specialists who go deep on web design and development and can still flex across different areas. AI makes that even easier,” says Jessica.
Survival tip #44:
GO WITH THE
FLOW
SURVIVAL TIPS FOR AI ADOPTION
Here’s how Jessica Rosenberg suggests teams can navigate the first big steps:
1. EMBRACE THE HOT NEW THING
“Back in the 80s, a mentor of mine saw Adobe Illustrator in use for the first time. Initially, he was scared it would take designers’ jobs.”
“But once his team started using it, he realized it made them better and faster. I think the same is true with AI. Human creativity, taste, and craft will lead the way.”
AI is the latest in a long series of technological developments that rocked the creative world—none of which made skills obsolete. Resistance doesn’t help; learning the tools and how they fit into your workflow does.
2. FEELING OVERWHELMED? START SMALL
“AI is evolving so rapidly that everyone feels behind—it’s not just you. Progress comes from practice, not perfection, so if you keep making an effort, you’ll be fine.”
Start with one tool, one task, one hour. Experiment, even if it’s just writing a brief with ChatGPT. There are so many free tools out there. Try one for free, and only start paying when you’re really seeing value.
3. DEVELOP A TASTE FOR FIRE
“Invest in helping your team develop taste through mentorship and coaching. When we’re surrounded by talented people, we get trained over time on what great work looks like, just like an AI tool would.”
Taste is one of the most important qualities creatives can have. That’s even more true when AI speeds up and elevates workflows. Make an ongoing practice of looking for opportunities to develop your taste. As you adopt more and more workflows, that will help ensure they deliver incredible work.
chapter three
differentiation
THE LOST ART OF NOT GETTING LOST
In conversation with Gareth Morgan, Head of Global Brand Design at Revolut By definition, unique is rare
Even before AI, everybody copied everybody.
By definition, unique and memorable content is rare. It takes effort and discipline to dream up campaigns that stick, especially in the face of the looming deadlines and bursting pipelines creative teams face every day.
These struggles aren’t new for creative professionals;
it’s just that AI now provides a shortcut to generate content under pressure. That shortcut is often not worth the tradeoff but, when used correctly, AI does have brand-making power.
Content quality issues arise when teams start to see AI as a magical solution to their creative bottleneck woes. Generative AI tools are impressive, but they won’t create unique output that drives results without talented humans behind the wheel.
“Sometimes, people are so impressed by what AI can do that they don’t think critically,” says Gareth Morgan, Head of Global Brand Design at Revolut. “The AI ‘wow factor’ can fool people into thinking they’ve created a good end product. We need to move past that—question the output, push it, and squeeze it to get to the really good stuff.”
Brands must be careful as they wade into the AI waters. Consumers may react badly or feel as if they’ve been duped if they realize a piece of content is AI-generated. And audiences are getting better and better at spotting AI. You don’t want to be seen as part of the wave of what people call “AI slop:” repetitive, misleading content designed only to capture attention.
“AI can do so much for creative teams. But when it comes to how people perceive your brand, it’s a delicate balance. We’re approaching it cautiously—it can undo a lot of work if you get it wrong, but there’s also potential to do really exciting things.”
So, how can AI actually help brands stand out rather than blend in? It all comes back to brand integrity. When designers have solid knowledge of what their brand looks, sounds, and feels like, they’ll know immediately when a piece of content supports that.
That’s nothing new—brand cohesion matters whether designs are generated by AI or not.
“Brands have always needed guidelines to keep their content cohesive. I don’t think AI is a threat to that, it’s just one more tool to use to a high standard," says Gareth.
Gareth’s favorite AI use case: Copy prototyping for designers.
AI doesn’t replace designers or copywriters. But on Gareth’s team, it’s a valuable tool to help design teams move forward without resorting to generic placeholders when copywriters are overloaded or unavailable.
- Designers use AI tools to generate on-brand placeholder copy.
- This copy is more differentiated than
‘lorem ipsum’ text, so designs are unique even during iteration.
- When copywriters come into the process, they use this on-brand starter text as inspiration.
Survival tip #56:
MAKE YOUR
MESSAGE CLEAR
SURVIVAL TIPS
FOR AI
DIFFERENTIATION
Here’s how Gareth Morgan suggests we can develop unique AI creative:
1. LOSE THE "BLANK CANVAS SYNDROME"
“I’ve seen AI really help designers who aren’t as free-flowing with ideas. It can help them emulate stuff they’ve liked and give them something to start from.”
Sometimes getting started is the hardest part of the creative process. That’s why AI is such a valuable tool for getting past the blank page. Designers can feed in ideas or prompts that inspire them to generate ‘starter content.’
2. LEAN INTO THE WEIRDNESS
“For realism, AI can be tricky. But embrace the weirdness, and you can get fun, humorous visuals.”
To sidestep the cringe factor that can come with AI content, consider not trying to aim for perfect realism. AI is the perfect tool for wild or fantastical designs because audiences know they’re not looking at real life. That’s not to say realistic AI is impossible, but it’s definitely a higher bar to aim for.
3. EXPAND YOUR BRAND GUIDELINES
“AI guidelines aren’t hex codes and typefaces, but they’re still brand guidelines.”
Before making AI part of your creative workflow, create company-wide AI best practices. Get everyone using the same AI tools, and agree on what kinds of prompts will generate on-brand imagery. Prompts should contain guidelines for everything from camera angles to color palettes.
In the quest for strong brand identity, it’s crucial to remember that AI is just a tool.
In the right hands, AI creation can be a path to standing out, not a shortcut to shipping quickly. It just needs to be approached with the same care as any other design process.
“Successful creatives know what they stand for, push AI to its limits, and never stop raising their standards.”
chapter four
CAPACITY
WILL STANDING STILL
SINK YOU?
In conversation with Julia Jaskólska, Brand Design Lead at Zapier Despite AI’s promises of productivity, most creative teams are still struggling with bandwidth—78% say demand outstrips their capacity.
There are so many channels to show up on and formats to experiment with (some more labor-intensive, like video). Feeding the content beast may feel impossible, and many are hoping AI is the answer.
“Because we can do more with AI, people have more ideas, and that’s definitely shown up in our pipeline. But often, they’re not as simple to execute as they seem,” says Julia Jaskólska, Brand Design Lead at Zapier.
These heightened expectations aren’t always a bad thing—teams just need the capacity to match. Not only do they need to stay on top of the expanding pipeline, they’re trying to keep up with the velocity of collaborating teams who may already be AI-enabled.
So, how to create that capacity wiggle room?
- Audit your backlog. Regularly review incoming requests and align them against business goals. (At Zapier,the creative team openly discusses which ideas are worth pursuing and aligned to business goals and which to park.)
- Pinpoint friction. Map your process and highlight the repetitive or low-value tasks slowing you down.
- Apply AI strategically. Use AI to clear team bottlenecks—think first drafts, resizing assets, or generating design variations.
- Align with stakeholders. Share where AI actually does add efficiency, so partner teams understand what’s realistic and what isn’t.
This way, AI isn’t just a ‘nice-to-have’—it’s a capacity multiplier that helps creative teams focus on the high-impact work only humans can do, like brand storytelling, cultural interpretation and curation.
“As creatives, we’re not only doing work for other teams, we’re guiding how it gets done. What simple operational processes can we speed up? What’s the visionary creative stuff that needs care and attention?" says Julia.
Survival tip #120:
STRUGGLE
ISN'T A STRATEGY
Knee-deep in capacity issues
AI workflows: a helping hand
when you’re stuck in the mud
Zapier’s team leans on AI to stay centered, productive, and ahead of deadline. Here are five workflows Julia recommends for creative teams.
- Storyboards: Instead of manually sketching video or animation storyboards, ChatGPT can create a simple visual sequence from a text prompt.
- Content planning: Refine content ideas, like workshops and handbooks, by sparring with LLM tools. Ask the tool to point out how the concept could be more specific, actionable, or relevant to the target audience.
- LLM as knowledge base: Build a custom GPT or project loaded with all available information about a project or initiative. Team members can search for answers to their questions, in natural language, instead of chasing down colleagues or digging through documents.
- Copy generation and editing: Stop text from becoming a bottleneck for team members who aren’t comfortable with writing or need to generate text in their non-native language.
- Image enhancement: AI enhances off-brand or low-quality images, like headshots for event speakers, to match brand guidelines and quality standards.
“AI is the amplifier. Start from a clear vision, then invest in building AI systems so your creative team can execute that vision at scale,” says Julia.
Great work doesn’t happen when teams are spread thin and stuck in survival mode. That’s why the AI revolution has so much potential. If creative teams apply AI with a discerning eye, this is their moment to free up capacity for visionary work that elevates their entire organization.
chapter five
SPEED
THE SNOWBALL EFFECT OF MOVING WITH SPEED
In conversation with Ayesha Mathews Wadhwa, Head of Brand
Experience at a cybersecurity company Creative teams are under immense pressure to deliver not just variety and volume, but speed.
78% of creatives want to create bolder work, but are always racing against the clock. Daily work can feel like an endless cycle of ship, test, and iterate.
“You can move fast, but if your idea gets diluted or you struggle with execution, then speed doesn't actually serve you,” says Ayesha Mathews Wadhwa, leader of a global brand experience team.
AI accelerates creative work. Off-the-shelf tools generate images 50-90% faster than manual design processes, while custom AI models are 10x faster. But speed for its own sake isn’t helpful. The real question is: why do we want to move faster?
Over-optimizing for velocity, to the exclusion of everything else, can lead to creative work that doesn’t support business goals.
“It's not about rushing, it's about unblocking.”
For Ayesha, the goal is to use AI to free teams from distracting busywork that steals focus from deep creative thinking.
But to handle even these simple tasks end-to-end, AI needs rich context and guidance. That means strong guardrails, like brand guidelines and quality control checklists, incorporated into every AI-enhanced workflow.
“It's not about rushing, it's about unblocking. AI can help creative leaders build the conditions for flow, and that’s when we see truly compounding productivity gains.” she says.
It takes upfront work to build this foundation, but it’s the only way for AI to support both speed and creativity. Teams go from idea to impact faster because they’re not handling repetitive tasks and can trust that AI is well-trained enough to delegate to. This creates more space to experiment, refine, and ship worthwhile creative work faster.
SURVIVAL TIPS FOR AI SPEED
Here’s how Ayesha Mathews Wadhwa suggests teams can build speed:
1. CARVE OUT FRAMEWORKS FOR CLARITY
“Lack of clarity and alignment are the typical blockers to speed. Invest time in building rigorous frameworks that create shared understanding.”
The fastest AI processes in the world won’t help teams who aren’t on the same page. Upfront alignment ensures that when AI comes in to speed things up, it’s actually bringing teams towards the outcomes you want.
2. TAKE STRATEGIC RISKS
“The right structure gives teams the confidence to move fast and to take risks. AI needs guardrails to support quality at a fast pace.”
Embedded into AI workflows, checklists and guidelines make sure creative lives up to brand standards even when teams are moving fast. These include basic quality assurance checklists, brand voice and tone guidelines, and custom projects or GPTs built for different types of creative output.
“When we’re deep into work, we sometimes forget to step back and look at it with a fresh pair of eyes,” says Ayesha. Moving quickly, and using AI tools, can make it even harder to pause and get that objectivity because teams are so focused on the final outcome. Guardrails help make sure quality standards are baked into every creative workflow.
3. LET YOUR TEAM STEER
“AI is great for scale, but not for soul. With creative work, sometimes the magic is in the mess.”
The #1 way AI makes teams faster is by eliminating repetitive busywork. Ayesha’s team relies on AI tools for tasks like prototyping layouts, generating moodboards, and early revisions of voiceover scripts.
That gives human creatives more time for what they do best—brand voice development, early stage ideation, and big-picture creative thinking. “True creativity requires instinct, intuition, and connection to culture,” says Ayesha. “These are areas where I’d rather tap the team’s lived experience.”
Survival tip #92:ZIG WHERE
ZIG WHERE
OTHERS ZAG
“AI’s best use is to give us back the white space to be strategic, bold, and insightful.”
How Ayesha uses AI to create compounding efficiency gains.
Ayesha’s team used custom AI models to create a new icon library fast. Now, the library itself creates velocity by helping internal and external teams create content faster.
- After a company-wide brand evolution, there was a need for a new library of 300-500 icons. However, with limited capacity, the brand experience team needed a more scalable approach than manual creation.
- The team decided to train a custom Adobe Firefly model on their icon style, then used it to generate icons that needed only light revision to be ready for use.
- Now, both external partners like agencies, and in-house creative teams, can use the icons for easy self-serve collateral creation in as little as 24 hours.
In the AI era, speed is the new baseline. But brands that win don’t just move fast, they move meaningfully. Their edge becomes clarity and coherence under pressure—rising to the challenge with content that speaks to customers’ thoughts, feelings, and pain points.
“It’s not just about shipping faster, it's about
unlocking flow.”
06
conclusion
CONCLUSION:
A SHIFT IN TIME SAVES NINE
If these creative leaders are any indication, the AI era is one of optimism, promise, and a bold experimental spirit.
There’s nothing to be afraid of—in fact, creative teams can reach unimaginable new heights. We just need to dream big about what AI is capable of, while staying grounded in what our teams need right now.
Here are our 5 favorite survival tips shared by creative leaders in this guide:
- To discover AI use cases that actually drive value, allocate time out of teams’ workloads specifically for experimentation.
- Rock-solid brand identity and audience knowledge is key to great content, whether generated by AI or not.
- Identify friction points and bottlenecks, and apply AI there first to boost team productivity.
- Everyone wants to work faster but using AI to over-optimize for speed can lead to creative work that doesn’t support business goals.
- Rather than trying to be an expert in everything, go narrow when planning AI adoption and identify workflows that most urgently need support.
get in touch
Your team deserves more than survival mode
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the team behind this guide
Editors Melissa McFarlane, Jen Rapp, Josh Mendelsohn. Creative Direction Kae Neskovic, Graeme McCree, Piotr Smietana, Joshua Roscoe. Web Design Camila Giannini, Pedro Carmo, Vladislav Balabanovich, Ameen Aburayya. Design Devin Terrey, Nathalie Jourdan. Content Genevieve Michaels, Tessa Reid, Sam Newdigate, Ashleigh Robyn. Contributors Cassandra Gill, Helen Lee, Kira Klaas, Drew Brucker, Gah-Yee Won, Júlio Aymoré, Jessica Rosenberg, Gareth Morgan, Julia Jaskólska, Ayesha Mathews Wadhwa. Project Management Sofia Bittolo, Iliada Karamintziou.