It happened slowly and then all at once.
A couple years ago, Andrew was going deep into AI and all that it meant to our future: how kids learned in school, what impact it had on our and other industries, the ethics of using it for content—most personally, what it meant for us as writers.
I’m Gen X. You could say, not super techy. When he talked about AI, I listened but I didn’t pay much attention. First, it didn’t particularly interest me and also, I didn’t see it as that relevant. I was busy with my clients and articles and projects and I was unknowingly using AI online, but I wasn’t actively playing with ChatGPT or Canva.
Then last year I had two conversations in the same day that made me think, ohhhh…. The first was with a friend who was launching a small business selling a product. He told me how he gave AI the content of what he wanted to communicate and then kept putting it through and shaping it and commanding it until the copy was exactly what he wanted. (Thanks, Craig – you know you could have just come to me, right??) That evening, another friend, in another industry, told me that the executive assistant at her company was bored because she used AI for travel bookings and other administrative tasks that used to dominate her to-do list, and her time. Those conversations made AI more tangible. I understood its practical benefits in a way I hadn’t when just considering it conceptually.
But still.
Though my incoming inquiries for freelance were fewer than in years past, I was still busy enough. The possibility that brands and agencies might be leaning on AI for projects they would otherwise be reaching out to me for was more real, but I still believed the human element of my personal experience, creativity, originality, and actual human relations mattered.
Jump to 2025. A shit year by any measurement, but on a professional level, for me, it’s the Year AI Took My Career Away.
Being a freelance writer, I expect ebbs and flows and some relationships to fade out. But it feels like overnight, prior clients have gone completely quiet. I know the ad industry is shriveling up, I know clients aren’t sure how, if at all, to invest. But I also know that everyone is using AI. My friends, old colleagues, old art director partners, and my current clients and partners. AI has become an essential tool for practically every industry, at every level.
So where does that leave me? Still reaching out to old clients and colleagues, trying to drum up immediate business. But also poking around Perplexity and Dall-E. And more important, considering what Act II is going to be. Which is for another post.
With AI, it’s kind of like when Andrew and I were still living in Brooklyn after Parker was born. We were pretty sure we’d eventually leave the city but were never ready. Then Covid happened and suddenly we were ready. We made the move swiftly.
I knew I was going to age out of advertising but figured it would be a long tail of transition. Now suddenly there is no runway. It is here. AI has expedited it. I’m at the door of what’s next. Now I just need to open it, walk through, and discover exactly what it is.