Why the best ideas in 2025 aren’t human or machine-made – they’re both
In 2025, AI isn’t a novelty – it’s an everyday creative tool.
But as automation accelerates, audiences are craving emotion, imperfection, and craft.
Brands need to stop asking either/or and start asking how to integrate both, responsibly.
One of the most defining creative tensions right now? The rise of artificial intelligence vs. the return to craft.
It’s tempting to treat them as opposites – code on one side, creativity on the other. But in reality, the most interesting creative work in 2025 isn’t choosing sides. It’s playing in the space between.
AI has moved from novelty to necessity. It’s now deeply embedded in the creative process: writing, designing, editing, analyzing, even generating fully formed campaigns. It brings scale, speed, and automation to a world that’s moving too fast for human teams to keep up alone.
But something else is rising just as fast: A collective hunger for work that feels personal. Handmade. Human. Because in a world where everything can be generated, the thing that makes someone feel something stands out.
The paradox of 2025: efficiency vs. emotion
Right now, 63 per cent of brands are already using AI to generate content – not just emails and headlines, but logos, digital lookbooks, product concepts, and immersive virtual experiences. The fashion world, in particular, is charging forward.
Take Mango Teen, a Spanish brand that released a full campaign last year with zero models and zero location shoots. Just garments shot in-studio and dropped into an entirely AI-generated world. The results? Faster production, lower costs, more creative freedom for the art team – and strong resonance with Gen Z audiences raised on digital aesthetics.
Or look at H&M, which announced plans to develop hyper-realistic digital twins of real models – down to their micro-expressions. These AI avatars will appear in e-commerce and campaigns. But in a thoughtful twist, models retain rights to their AI likeness, creating a new kind of licensing model that (at least partially) protects human creative ownership.
The message is clear: AI isn’t replacing creativity. It’s reshaping it. And some brands are doing this with intention.
But here’s the tension: connection, without the human?
Just because AI can do something – does that mean it should?
That question hit hard when OpenAI dropped its image generator into ChatGPT and suddenly, the internet was flooded with dreamy, uncanny images of ourselves – Pixar-style avatars, Minecraft selfies, anime portraits. It was whimsical. Emotional, even. But also... unsettling.
When technology simulates feeling, it raises the stakes.
Studio Ghibli co-founder Hayao Miyazaki called AI art “grotesque” and “an insult to life itself.” Harsh? Maybe. But his words landed – because what we’re grappling with now isn’t style. It’s soul.
What happens when we start mistaking the simulation of human touch for the real thing?
A cultural craving for design carbs
As AI accelerates, a counter-trend is rising beneath the surface: people want warmth. Texture. Emotion. They’re hungry for what some creatives are calling design carbs – visuals and experiences that feel layered, imperfect, human.
One of the most viral moments of 2024? Apple’s iPad Pro ad – the one where a hydraulic press crushes instruments, books, paint, and cameras before revealing the sleek new device. The intention was clear: everything creative, in one device.
The reaction? Not what Apple expected.
For many, the ad felt like a metaphor for what tech – and AI – might erase: human creativity, culture, and craft. The backlash underscored something audiences are already feeling: a desire for authenticity in design. Something that feels made by someone, not just for scale.
Brands that are building human-first
While some companies lean into the full AI stack, others are doubling down on the human side of the story.
Etsy has made its stance crystal clear: Keep Commerce Human. It’s not just a slogan – it’s a positioning strategy that elevates slow craft, maker culture, and real-world imperfection. In an era where fast, automated, and synthetic dominate, Etsy is reminding people why hand-made matters.
It’s working. Because when every brand is chasing efficiency, the ones that take their time stand out.
What this means for brands right now
This isn’t about rejecting AI. It’s about asking better questions.
Where does AI add value to the creative process?
Where does it flatten emotional depth?
And where might it actually amplify human craft, instead of replacing it?
The best creative teams in 2025 aren’t all-in on one side. They’re finding the blend. Using AI to scale, but human creativity to connect. Machines to produce faster. Humans to make it matter.
Because creativity in 2025 lives in the tension. And the brands willing to work with that tension – rather than against it – are the ones who will win.
Coming up next: Short vs. long: Storytelling in the age of attention overload. Why both formats are thriving – and how brands can balance speed with substance.
Katherine Scarrow is the manager of creative strategy for Globe Content Studio at The Globe and Mail in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.