Assumptions are the deathknell for creativity. Yet when it comes to leading in the age of AI, the assumption that adoption of technology in isolation will drive change is the ultimate myth. However sophisticated your tech stack is, these remarkable tools will never reach their full potential without the right talent stack in place.

This is why so many of the world’s most innovative companies are focusing on building their leadership capabilities in the AI era. In conversations in New York and London alike a common question emerges: What will be the capabilities and talent which will shape not just the use of AI tools in isolation, but form a bridge between creativity, commercial impact and technology?

The stakes are high. Many leaders are privately concerned that their businesses are not keeping ahead of the pace of change in AI innovation. New leadership models are desperately needed. Ones that recognise that true collaboration between creative leaders and technical experts are business critical.

As the cost of marketing tech continues to rise, creative leaders are recognising that their AI strategy cannot sit within a single workflow or Gen AI solution. Adoption alone is not a strategy.

Mind the talent gap

The post-AI creative economy affords the industry the opportunity to be on the bleeding edge of human creativity powered by machine capability. From holding companies to start up studios, we are seeing a new playbook for talent to emerge as companies move from experimentation to embedding AI across their entire business models.

Progressive companies are increasingly looking to hire the leaders that will shape this new phase of growth. The Chief AI Officer role is on the rise. According to LinkedIn, 13% more organisations have created AI executive leadership roles since December 2022, an upward hiring trend set to continue. The early blueprints for these new roles underline that true AI leadership is a far more ambitious brief than simply rolling out a new tech stack.

If the first wave of AI innovation was rooted in investing in technology, its second is grounded in investing in leaders committed to driving a new growth agenda. We are seeing expansive briefs for ambitious and collaborative leaders that reach beyond the silos and stereotypes of traditional creative leadership roles.

These companies are tearing up the job descriptions of old in search of leaders who can set a distinctive vision, crafting a strategy and cultivating the culture to bring every department and discipline with them.

This culture-first approach to leadership means that this next wave of AI leadership will be forged just as much from leaders reinventing themselves, to the continued influx of specialist technologists to the creative industries.

Beyond the AI anxiety

These new briefs underline that beyond all those anxiety-inducing headlines that AI is coming for your job, a more nuanced truth is that experienced talent still matters. The craft of creativity and storytelling still counts.

Even the world’s most innovative AI platforms have turned to trusted marketing experts to build their brands through emotional storytelling, not homogenous and generic messaging. OpenAI appointed Kate Rouch as their first CMO in December 2024 from Coinbase. Last month OpenAI launched its first major brand campaign for Chat GPT and Anthropic brought in Andrew Stirk as Head of Brand Marketing.

According to IBM 64% of CEOs say succeeding with Generative AI depends more on people’s adoption than the technology itself. But adoption in isolation isn’t a vision for this new era of creative leadership. When AI puts new tools in the hands of creators, the need for leaders to set a true vision that inspires collaboration and care has never been more vital. Put simply, the talent of the people in our businesses and their emotional intelligence has never mattered more.

A new era of emotionally intelligent leadership

According to Goldman Sachs’ recent survey of over 2,000 of its interns 66% ranked emotional intelligence as the most irreplaceable workplace skill. The leaders of tomorrow will increasingly lean on this emotional intelligence to decide what is worth doing and what simply generates more generic AI-Slop. In a sea of generic personalisation at scale, powered by AI, creative clarity and brand essence will be the new rarity.

What feels different from the dawn of the digital era is this: AI doesn’t require a generation of technologists fluent in code. It demands creative leaders fluent in brand. The technology will do the heavy lifting. What matters most is what you put into the top of the funnel; your ideas, your taste, your values, your emotional intelligence.

Now is the time to recognise the importance of exceptional modern human leadership in the age of AI. We must have the ambition to think beyond the silos of the past. The creative industry has a once in a generation opportunity to lead the way in how AI impacts storytelling, brand messaging and business performance. But the industry will only rise to this challenge by placing its talent stack, not its tech stack, in the driving seat of change.