With AI, Creativity Becomes Less About Making and More About Deciding

One thing is clear: technology is making production faster. But that is not the biggest shift in the creative industry.

The more significant change is happening where value is created. As certain stages of execution become more accessible, faster, and cheaper, the decisions made before, during, and after execution become more important: what deserves to be created, for whom, with what purpose, in what context, and, above all, what should not be made.

Discernment Will Set the Rules

The report The Creativity Edition, published by Google in 2026 and based on interviews with more than 20 leaders in creativity, marketing, and technology, takes this very shift as its starting point. The document does not present technology as a replacement for human creativity. Quite the opposite: it shows how expanding production possibilities makes direction, experimentation, and curation more important, along with the ability to turn possibilities into choices.

This distinction is essential for marketing leaders. For a long time, a significant share of creative work centered on execution:

• Knowing how to edit
• Knowing how to animate
• Knowing how to illustrate
• Knowing how to write

These skills still matter, but access to tools is expanding the production capabilities of people and teams that once relied entirely on specialists to turn an idea into something tangible.

The New Decision-Making Process

Google itself notes that new tools make it possible to prototype, visualize, and test concepts much earlier in the creative process. The practical result: ideas that once had to be pitched in words alone can now be put in front of a team or client to be evaluated, revised, or discarded.

This changes the decision-making process. A team that could previously develop only three options because a fourth would exceed its timeline or budget can now explore ten. But exploring ten possibilities does not mean all ten are good. It means someone will need to be even better at recognizing which one deserves to move forward.

This is where creative knowledge, judgment, and direction begin to gain value.

Creative Knowledge and Clear Criteria

There is a difference between having a wealth of references and knowing how to use them. A creative frame of reference is not a folder full of saved images, a list of award-winning campaigns, or the ability to spot trends. It is the ability to make connections.

Recognizing that a particular cultural behavior may be relevant to a brand. Understanding when a visual language helps explain something and when it merely decorates it. In a world of abundant production, this ability to connect the dots becomes even more essential. Technology can expand the range of possibilities, but creative knowledge helps us navigate it. The challenge, then, is no longer being able to make things; it is establishing criteria.

The more information a company needs to convey, the more rigor it needs in selecting and prioritizing that information. Good direction does not add elements; it decides which ones deserve to stay.

The Impact on Marketing Leadership

Google had already identified this shift in its earlier research with creative leaders: technology can accelerate research, ideation, prototyping, and production, but creativity, strategic thinking, and judgment remain decisive in turning that speed into results.

This shift is also evident beyond Google's report. A Brazilian survey conducted by Makers in partnership with Adobe, involving 115 CMOs, marketing directors, and heads of marketing, found that 74% of the leaders surveyed believe technology reinforces the value of existing roles and raises expectations for critical thinking, curation, and decision-making.

This is where technology becomes truly interesting for marketing: not when it replaces thinking, but when it frees up time and resources so people can think better. For us at Thanks for Sharing, this shift helps explain why the future of B2B video is not simply about producing more videos. It is about thinking more carefully about what needs to be communicated, to whom, at what moment, and how each asset can keep working after delivery.