Objective: To advocate for clarity, empathy, and specialization in creative roles as AI reshapes the modern job market.
Tone: Bold. Human. Experienced.

Let Creatives Be Creative

Letting creatives be creative should not be controversial

After twenty years of success as a writer, I am having trouble finding available roles in this post apocalyptic landscape that is the creative job market. I am competing with literally hundreds of other people for the same role, many of whom are struggling for the same reasons. I know this because applications and submission receipts now routinely indicate that a single posting, whether junior or senior, copy or UX, has drawn hundreds of applicants.

UX writing roles are especially difficult to find, despite the fact that I have worked in that discipline since the advent of the internet. Yes, that makes me a dinosaur. Hear me roar. The reason is not a lack of demand for UX writing. It is that UX writing has quietly been merged with responsibilities that do not belong to it. Writers are now expected not only to craft language that guides users through an experience, but also to perform SEO analytics and campaign measurement.

To be clear, working with keywords, understanding optimization, and knowing how to place language for best practices is part of UX writing. Performing the analytics of an SEO optimization effort is not. That work belongs to people who were wired for math and science, not art and English. I do not care if the right brain versus left brain theory has been debunked. Anyone who has spent a career in creative work knows the difference is real.

This should not be controversial.

This is not about age. Fresh perspectives matter. New graduates bring curiosity, speed, and comfort with emerging tools that many teams need. The issue is not who is being hired. The issue is what they are being asked to do.

More and more writing roles now require analytics ownership, campaign management, performance measurement, design execution, and full content delivery, all wrapped into a single title often labeled “Content Developer.” Writers are expected to write and do math. Designers are expected to design and manage campaigns. Strategy, execution, and measurement are collapsing into one job.

That is not evolution. That is role compression.

And it disproportionately affects senior creatives whose strength is depth, judgment, and craft.

The senior creative mindset

For context, I spent twenty years as a Creative Director, who assigned herself all of the writing. Campaign strategy, brand positioning, leadership, and yes, analytics were part of my world. Even then, the best teams understood something fundamental: specialization protects quality.

I knew enough analytics to ask the right questions, but partnered with people whose brains were wired for numbers to produce the actual data. That collaboration made the work stronger. It also kept creatives focused on what they do best.

Today, I see senior copywriter roles that read like Creative Director job descriptions, including team leadership and performance metrics, yet pay like junior writing positions and still require full writing output. This is not restructuring. It is devaluing. It is also unrealistic.

And yes, it includes math.

Why this is happening

AI changed the hiring formula

AI did not knock politely. It barged in boldly and changed expectations about how work gets done.

With AI powered tools embedded into workflows, companies began assuming that the same person who writes or designs can also plan, produce, manage, and measure campaigns. The assumption followed quickly that, if software can do part of the job, then one person can do the work of three.

I understand the logic. And I absolutely oppose it.

As AI automates key operational tasks, roles are being restructured. New job titles blend multiple disciplines, such as AI Content Ops Manager or YouTube Distribution Strategist-tasking one professional with work that previously spanned three departments (CareerFoundry, 2025).

This is how the three-in-one role was born.

The three-in-one role, explained

The three-in-one role is most often disguised as a “Content Developer.”

In practice, this role expects one person to write the content, design the assets, and produce or manage the campaign, including timelines, tools, and performance metrics. What used to be handled by a writer, a designer, and a marketing manager is now assigned to a single creative, justified by the presence of AI powered tools.

This role is not rare. It is quickly becoming the default.

Supply and demand meets reality

Because supply significantly outweighs demand, hundreds of creatives apply to each open role, regardless of seniority level. Applications and submission receipts now routinely indicate that a single posting, whether junior or senior, copy or UX, has drawn hundreds of applicants.

That number matters.

It reveals how many talented creatives are out of work or underemployed, not because they lack ability, but because they were trained to master one discipline, not to perform three simultaneously.

Stretching a creative that far does not enhance their talent. It dilutes it. And just like a rubber band, once a person is pulled too tight, they snap.

Or imagine a big bubble of stifled creativity popping in your face and getting stuck in your hair. That is what happens when you expect senior level management performance from people who typically excel at writing or designing, not management, metrics, or analytics. The work suffers every time. And sometimes you cannot get the gum out of your hair. In other words, sometimes you expect too much, and the person does not burn out quietly. They explode with frustration, disengagement, and eventually, departure.

What senior creatives bring that cannot be automated

Senior creatives are not just faster juniors. We are pattern recognizers. We carry institutional memory. We anticipate problems before they surface. We know enough to anticipate when a message will land and when it will quietly fail.

We also understand collaboration. I want to work with designers, strategists, analysts, and developers. I do not want to replace them. I can’t.

A three-in-one role turns creative work into a daily Choose Your Own Adventure:

1. If you want to schedule social posts for Chewbacca today, turn to page seven.
2. On page seven, Yoda appears and says, “Do or do not. There is no try.”
3. So you tried. And failed. Exactly as predicted.

Industry data supports the need for this shift: nearly three-quarters of marketers use AI regularly, yet only 36 percent feel adequately trained to operate it effectively (Boston Consulting Group, 2025). Which means instead of replacing leadership logically, companies lean into assumption and role merging. They skip human expertise and ask for automation to fill strategy gaps.

Instead of rebuilding teams around expertise, companies merge roles and hope tools will fill the gaps.

What this is not about

This is not anti AI.
This is not resistance to learning.
This is not nostalgia.

I lived through the dot com era. I got on the internet train early and watched entire industries reshape themselves. AI will do the same. Learning it is not optional. I completed an intense immersion into AI prompt engineering to enhance my skills because I understand what is here and what is coming. I am a certified Professional level Prompt Engineer. No, I do not use AI to write. This is not AI bashing. It is realism.

Learning AI does not mean abandoning your craft or selling out. It is adaptation. Darwin’s theory is often reduced to “survival of the fittest,” but what he actually described was survival of the most adaptable. So let’s adapt.

What I am asking for

I am happy to collaborate with a team, and I am fine flying solo. I am happy to mentor newer writers and help them avoid the mistakes I learned along the way in my own career. I am not happy to step into a hollowed out leadership, or three-in-one role, while also trying to recall the Pythagorean Theorem.

Hiring someone to do a job they are not trained for is a risk. More applicants does not mean more capability. Metrics masquerading as creativity do not produce meaningful work. Picture a deeply experienced writer who has done the leadership work and now wants to apply that wisdom to the page. That person still exists. I am one of them.

Why say this out loud

Because I looked, and I did not see anyone else saying this honestly and clearly, boldly standing up for what is right.

If speaking from the heart disqualifies me, then we were never a fit. I care about outcomes, quality, and contribution. I want to be part of a team that respects specialization and understands that creative depth is not inefficiency.

I write. I build. I create. When I look at clouds, I see unicorns, not the symbol for pi.

Final thought

Creative work is not interchangeable labor. It is a mindset, a discipline, and a craft honed over time.

When you compress roles, you compress thinking. When you stretch creatives too thin, the work loses its soul. And when you ask experts to be everything, you end up with less of what made them exceptional in the first place.

Let creatives be creative.

That is not a radical idea. It is a necessary one.