Our key takeaways from D&AD's AI & Creativity Report 2026

AI-generated image by Mallen Studio

D&AD published its second report on AI and creative work recently: 197 conversations with creative leaders across 60 cities, checked against D&AD's Awards data from 10,118 entries. It's worth reading in full (link here). The report confirmed a lot of what we've believed since day one: AI has raised the floor, but not the ceiling. Here are a few of the things that stood out to us.

AI tends towards average without the right direction

Across eight languages, the same words kept coming up to describe AI's default output: generic, formulaic, derivative, flat, vanilla. Left alone, the tools work from what already exists and trend toward the average. D&AD's President put it plainly: the industry baseline has become "a sea of AI slop."

We've been saying a version of this since day one. Most AI tools spit out something generic. Ours doesn't, because an experienced human is directing every image, not just prompting it. Reading it back from an independent source backed by real award data is reassuring.

Judgement is the product

The report highlights something we've been trying to put into words for a while: the tools are the same for everyone now. What isn't the same is the judgement behind them - knowing which idea is worth pursuing, when something's technically fine but not actually good, what a brand is trying to say and whether the image delivers on it.

That's the whole premise behind Mallen Studio. Martin's spent years learning to tell the difference between competent and distinctive. A prompt can't make that call and it’s not something we should attempt to shortcut. Saving time on production means we can invest more time in landing the right idea. That means brands can go further, not just faster.

The value of our value

This is the section that resonated hardest and it goes some way towards us overcoming an awkward initial hurdle. D&AD found that most of the industry still sells judgement but prices time - around 70% of the creative leaders they spoke to reported no change to their fee structures, despite speed being the most cited benefit of AI. If the tools have made things faster and pricing hasn't moved to reflect what's actually being sold, the saving quietly transfers to the client, and the person doing the judgement work gets paid as if none of it happened.

We've had this exact conversation with clients directly - being asked to quote for extra work based on how long it might take, and having to explain why that's the wrong question. The real cost isn't the minutes spent generating an image. It's everything that came before it: understanding the brief, reconciling conflicting references, building the workflow that makes the image accurate in the first place. Once that's done, producing more is genuinely fast. That doesn't mean it should be priced like a stopwatch.

It's part of why we've built our own pricing around how much creative direction a brief actually needs, not around hours or image counts. It's a different question, and it reflects the what clients are paying us for. If we cut that stuff out - you probably wouldn’t be talking to us in the first place.

The talent question, for when we need it

We're not close to hiring yet, but of course we’ve already started to think ahead. When we do bring people in, we can see two different schools of thought. One is an experienced photographer/creative who wants to learn our workflows - someone who already has the eye and the direction instinct, and just needs the tools to produce without the overheads and logistics of a traditional shoot. The other is raw creative talent who's perhaps never had a way into production in the first place, given the tools and support required to turn their thinking into finished work. We don't know yet which direction we'll go in first, but eventually we hope it’s both.

What we do know is that leveling the playing field on tools cuts both ways. The report is honest that AI risks quietly closing the junior pipeline, since it removes the small early tasks people used to learn from. And that not only means less opportunity for people breaking into the industry but it also means experienced talent will reduce over time as well. That's a real risk, worth taking seriously rather than ignoring because it isn't our problem yet. But it also means the traditional route into this industry, expensive kit, unpaid placements, years of assisting, isn't the only route anymore and that could be a real opportunity. There's a lot of talent in Bristol and the surrounding area that's never had an obvious way in, including people connected through networks like Babbasa, and people looking to change careers later in life.

If the tools mean we can hire the best creative mind we find, rather than the person who could afford to get a foot in the door first, being remote-first should make that easier, not harder.

We're a way off making that call properly, but the decisions we make when we get there will either open a door or quietly keep it shut, and it's on us to get that right.

The floor and the ceiling

The report closes on “AI has lifted the floor, but it hasn't raised the ceiling“. Generic, competent, forgettable work is now the easy default for anyone, anywhere. Distinctive creative has always been the harder thing to make and it still is. We just think more brands should be able to reach it and we exist to make that a reality.

Want to see what our human-directed AI photography looks like for your brand? Get in touch.