Most creative production teams now use generative AI somewhere in their work. 63% of brand owners already build it into their marketing (WFA, 2024). What none of them have is a settled set of job titles for the people running it. The work is being done by roles with no agreed name, no benchmark salary and no standard description, and the companies hiring them are writing the definitions as they go.
That gap is where the advantage sits. New capability arrives in a business before the structure catches up, and the firms that hire for it early move first. Six emerging AI creative roles are forming in creative production right now, ahead of their titles. Here’s where each one stands, and what it takes to hire for work the market hasn’t named yet.
Key Takeaways
- The tools are mainstream but the job titles aren’t, so hiring this work means hiring capability that has no fixed name
- Three roles are forming at the leadership end, led by the Chief AI Officer now appointed across the major holding companies
- Three more are forming closer to the work, with the AI creative technologist the furthest along and the most contested
- The entry points that produce these people are narrowing while demand climbs, so the firms that define the roles early hire ahead of the market
What the market looks like now
71% of organisations now use generative AI in at least one function (McKinsey, March 2025), but only 30% have fully built it into the campaign process from start to finish (IAB, 2025). Most are past testing it and not yet running it everywhere, and that’s the phase that creates new roles.
The effect on creative work is already visible. The World Economic Forum put graphic designers on its list of fastest-declining jobs for the first time in 2025, naming generative AI as the cause (WEF, 2025). At the same time, AI and machine learning specialists rank among the fastest-growing roles, and in the UK the single fastest-growing job of the year was AI engineer (LinkedIn, 2025). The market isn’t shrinking. It’s moving. The roles it rewards have changed.
| Emerging role | Where it sits in 2025 |
|---|---|
| AI transformation lead | Arriving as the Chief AI Officer, board level |
| AI ethics and brand safety | Forming as AI governance, compliance-driven |
| AI partnership lead | A structure more than a hire, through vendor programmes |
| AI creative technologist | Real, advertised and contested |
| AI version controller | No title yet, absorbed into production and operations |
| AI authenticity auditor | Becoming the AI auditor, driven by regulation |
Where the senior strategy roles are forming
Three of the six sit at the leadership end.
The first is the AI transformation lead, the person who carries a creative business from pilots to production. It’s arriving as the Chief AI Officer. WPP has had one since 2021 in Daniel Hulme, Stagwell appointed John Kahan as its first, and Golin brought in Jeff Beringer (Storyboard18, 2025). The role is real. It sits a level higher than most expected, at the board, not below it.
The second is AI ethics and brand safety, forming under the wider heading of AI governance. The pressure behind it is measurable. 80% of brand owners say they’re concerned about how their agencies use generative AI, with legal exposure, ethics and reputation the three named worries (WFA, 2024). The EU AI Act’s transparency duties come into force in August 2026, which turns a matter of judgement into a matter of compliance. Someone senior has to own it.
The third is the partnership lead, managing the relationship with the model companies. This one’s forming as a structure more than a single hire. The model companies now run partner programmes that work through agency teams rather than a single contact. The access is real. Before you write a standalone job description for it, look at whether the relationship belongs to one person or a team.
How the production roles are taking shape
Three more sit closer to the work.
The AI creative technologist is the furthest along. A year ago the title was barely advertised. Now it’s real, and fought over. Ad Age ran a feature on how thirteen agencies and production companies write job descriptions for AI roles, with the creative technologist at the centre (Ad Age, 2025). In the briefs we see, it’s the role asked for most and filled slowest. It moved fastest because it sits where the work is. Someone has to stand between the brief and the model, and that person needs a portfolio and a working command of the tools. That mix is still rare, and in the searches we run, a lot of that talent is crossing in from adjacent technical fields.
The AI version controller is the one still without a title. It’s the person who manages the sprawl of AI-generated assets, and the volume problem is real. Adobe’s Firefly alone had generated 22 billion assets by April 2025 (Adobe, 2025). No agency or brand we can find advertises for the role yet. The work is being absorbed into production and operations jobs before anyone decides it deserves its own name. That’s the stage where hiring is hardest and getting it right is worth the most.
The AI authenticity auditor is arriving as the AI auditor, driven by regulation more than craft. As disclosure rules tighten, someone has to verify what a model produced, under what licence, with what human input. The work is moving from a creative concern to a compliance one, and the same EU deadline sits behind it. The title’s still settling. The need isn’t.
How to hire for a role with no settled title
The job description is the wrong starting point when the job has no settled shape. Describe the problem instead. Rather than advertising for an AI creative technologist, set the test. We generate 10,000 assets a month, most need a human pass, half get rejected, fix that. Rather than listing qualifications, list the kit and ask what they’d build with it. Rather than years of experience, ask for proof of recent learning, something they couldn’t do six months ago. The strongest people in this market answer a sharp problem far faster than they answer a vague advert, because the problem tells them the role’s real.
Why the timing still matters
The harder problem sits underneath all six. The people who do this work are built in production over years, and the entry points that make them are tightening. US advertising employment fell for the seventh month running by June 2025, with agency headcount down to 218,900 (eMarketer, 2025). The junior roles that once taught the craft are the first to go when budgets contract and AI takes on the routine work. How much of that is really AI and how much is budget is a separate argument, but the effect on the pipeline is the same. Demand for AI-capable creative people climbs while the path that builds them narrows. That gap won’t close on its own.
So the move is to stop waiting for the titles to settle. The strongest people in this market are doing work with no agreed name, and they won’t show up under a search for a job that doesn’t formally exist. We spend most of our time in that gap, matching capability to companies, often through confidential search, before the label catches up. Wait for the structure to catch up, and you’ll hire these people a year late, and pay more for the privilege.
