AI to redefine creative jobs, not replace them, industry leaders say
CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES — Gathered at the Fortune Brainstorm AI conference, executives from global firms asserted that artificial intelligence (AI) will not automate creative jobs, but fundamentally transform them, according to a Fortune report.
They detailed a shift in human roles from hands-on production to strategic oversight, while warning that this could widen performance disparities among workers.
“With AI, the floor has been raised, but so has the ceiling,” said Elisabeth Zornes, Chief Customer Officer at Autodesk.
“We have an opportunity to create more, to be more imaginative.”
Human role shifts from producer to director
The central transformation identified by industry leaders is a fundamental redefinition of job functions. Rather than spending time on execution, professionals will increasingly focus on setting objectives and managing AI resources.
Nancy Xu, Vice President of AI and Agentforce at Salesforce, articulated this shift, noting that most workers currently act as producers, dedicating hours to pursuing specific operational goals, such as chasing customers or closing revenue.
With AI agents taking on more tasks, she stated that workers will move “from producers to more directors,” focusing on defining goals and delegating their achievement to AI.
This evolution is already yielding tangible results in product development cycles. Zornes cited a project with electric-vehicle maker Rivian where AI-powered tools enabled rapid digital testing, replacing physical clay models.
This approach “shaved off about two years of their development cycle,” Zornes said. By automating such lower-level tasks, AI allows workers to dedicate their efforts to more imaginative and creative projects.
AI impact uneven across workforce
Fortune reports that the benefits and disruptions of AI integration will not be distributed uniformly. The technology is poised to dramatically elevate middling performers while offering diminishing returns for top talent.
Salesforce’s Xu predicted that the near-term impact will largely “take the bottom 50 percentile performers inside a role and bring them into the top 50 percentile.”
“If you’re in the top 10 percentile, the superstar salespeople, creatives, the impact of AI is actually much less,” Xu added.
This uneven impact carries profound implications for corporate structure and career development. The report notes that AI, as an augmenting force, can handle entry-level execution work, potentially reducing hiring needs for those positions and eliminating traditional learning opportunities for new entrants.
Ami Palan, Senior Managing Director at Accenture’s creative group, Accenture Song, warned that technological implementation alone is insufficient. Success requires parallel changes, as she notes, “If the culture and the organization of people are not enabled in terms of how to use that, that Ferrari is essentially stuck in traffic.”
This underscores a period of adjustment ahead, during which workforce strategy must evolve alongside AI capabilities.
