At a Miami Ad School panel about creativity and artificial intelligence, the biggest surprise came from the man using almost none of it.
Juan Javier Peña Plaza of Gut made a striking admission: "I have to be honest, I don't use too much AI." In an industry where mastering the latest generative tool before breakfast is seen as essential to surviving until lunchtime, his stance was notable.
Peña Plaza is a copywriter and creative. He said AI is not central to his process. "At the end of the day, you still have to have the fundamentals," he said. "You have to have taste. You have to have an eye for design. You have to have a POV."
The process is collapsing
The other panelists were considerably more enthusiastic. Bre Fernandez, associate creative director at Macías Miami, described the industry as "disruptive." Michael DeJesus of Gearhead called it "limitless." Benji Shaw of Praytell emphasized "ideas" as the enduring differentiator.
Shaw described how the traditional process-a team conceptualizes, an art director does mockups, deck building, slow approval-is already disappearing. "One person can just concept, make the art and send it through WhatsApp," he said. "There's no deck. It's just like, 'Here's the visual, this is the idea.'" Fernadez said a creative with the right tools can operate like "a 10-person shop in one person."
The machine still needs direction
DeJesus called AI "a great and true collaborator," but one that "missing a little bit of a soul." Clear, concise creative direction produces better results, he argued. Peña Plaza offered his own rule: "You want AI to learn from you. You don't want to learn from AI."
If everyone starts with the same models and generated solutions, efficiency risks producing industry-wide sameness. DeJesus called it the "Pinterest effect": brands become indistinguishable because they draw from the same visual language. Taste and a strong point of view become more valuable, not less. The same principles apply to design workflows, where automated tools produce results fast but lack the perspective to know what's worth making.
The junior gap
Fernandez raised the most serious warning: AI may be making the industry "very top-heavy." Experienced creatives work faster and do more, but that comes at a cost. "There's been less of an onus in mentoring juniors because everything's moving so fast," she said. Senior creatives can use AI partly because they spent years learning what a decent idea looks like and having bad ones rejected.
Peña Plaza made the strongest case for preserving friction. "It should be hard to think of ideas," he said. "It should be hard to create because that's how you learn. That's how good creative happens."
Why this matters for creatives
The machines make it easy to produce. The rare skill is still knowing whether the result is any good-and training the next generation to tell the difference. AI for Creatives can increase output, but taste, cultural curiosity, and a strong point of view remain the critical differentiators.
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