81% of Creators Use AI, but Nearly Half of Tools Are Abandoned: The Adoption Paradox in the Creative Industry

Almost all marketers say they have touched artificial intelligence, but few have truly integrated it into their daily creative workflows. The latest findings from Luma's inaugural annual report, "State of Creative Professionals and AI: 2026," involving 760 respondents, show that 81% of creative professionals use AI to produce and release content. That figure looks encouraging, yet it contains an irony: high adoption does not correlate directly with tool retention.

Michele Madansky, a marketing research consultant at Michele Madansky Consulting, revealed in a workshop at Brandweek 2026 that the average creative organization evaluates 6.1 AI tools, adopts 4.3 of them, and then stops using three. "This is churn," she said, describing the high level of experimentation without guaranteed sustainability. According to her, the phenomenon is natural in a phase of searching for form, but it is also a signal that the learning curve remains steep.

The report also notes an adoption gap: agencies are at the forefront, while freelancers lag behind. In terms of content type, text writing and image creation are more often produced by AI than video. "Video is harder to produce," Madansky said, highlighting technical complexity and the need for greater resources.

Alexia Adana, forward deployed creative lead at Luma, demonstrated how AI agents and the company's creative platform can accelerate production. She cited a collaboration with Oakley, an eyewear brand under Luxottica. In that session, Adana interacted with an AI agent via chat, asking it to create mood boards and visual assets. "This agent is a sophisticated tool that has been trained, and it speaks to generative AI models on your behalf. You no longer need to be a technical prompt engineer to create high-quality assets," she explained. "You just need a good idea and solid direction for the agent to execute."

Luma built "Brand DNA" by uploading brand guidelines such as typography and logos, as well as past campaigns, so the system learns successful patterns. The platform also provides "digital twins" of human models and product images, allowing marketers with a creative brief to ask the agent to generate assets within minutes. Even so, Adana stressed that the process remains human-driven. "All of this is rooted in human work, the assets come from real photography, and it goes through a hybrid workflow," she said.

"This is churn. They test many things, but not all of them last." — Michele Madansky, marketing research consultant

For Indonesia, these findings serve as a mirror for the domestic creative industry, which is increasingly adopting AI. Large agencies in Jakarta and Surabaya may have integrated generative tools for content production, but MSMEs and freelancers still face constraints in cost, skills, and infrastructure. High global churn is a reminder that AI investment is not merely about buying licenses, but about building a culture of measured experimentation. The government, through digital literacy programs, can encourage training in prompt engineering and hybrid workflow management, so that adoption does not stop at the trial-and-error stage.

Going forward, the question is no longer whether AI will replace human creativity, but how quickly organizations can turn experimentation into established capability. If churn remains high, the next wave of adoption may be more selective — and players able to integrate AI deeply will reap a competitive advantage. Will 2026 be a turning point for tool consolidation, or will even more devices be abandoned?