All illustrations by Pete Ryan
Winners, Losers, and the New AI Divide in Creative Strategy
AI was meant to level the playing field. Instead, it has split creative strategy between a small group of super performers and everyone else.
November 16, 2025
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AI was supposed to make creative minds obsolete and turn ad production into a commodity. But instead—as our survey of 380+ DTC marketers and 15 expert interviews revealed—there is a growing divide right now in creative strategy.
In this special Thumbstop Quarterly Pulse report, we uncovered a small group of super performers who are using AI to get real leverage and advance their careers, while everyone else dabbles and waits for clearer instructions.
Enter your email and we'll send you our companion piece, “The Creative Strategist’s Guide to AI.” This guide walks you through the modern creative strategy flywheel — from building living brand docs and learned concepts to generating MVPs with ChatGPT, VEO3, and ElevenLabs.
