From Blank Page To Better KPIs: 1 in 4 Creative Teams Now Use AI for a Majority of Output

From blank-page brainstorms to draft iterations and reviews, AI has quietly become the extra set of hands creative teams always needed.

We surveyed 252 marketing creatives to see what’s actually changing, and the answers are concrete: hours back, stronger first passes, steadier workloads, and measurable KPI wins.

Read on for where the hours are saved, which KPIs move, how burnout is shifting, and how much of today’s creative output is now touched by AI.

Key Takeaways

Here are the highlights of our findings:

46% of creatives save five or more hours per week, and 20% save 10+ hours when using AI.
The biggest time wins come from core creative tasks: brainstorming ( 49%), content accessibility improvements (40%), first draft generation (40%), and research (37%).
AI is mainstream, with 26% of creatives saying half or more of their deliverables are AI-assisted.
AI reduces burnout across teams, as 48% of professional creatives report less stress since adopting AI.
38% of creatives say AI-assisted assets beat fully human-created ones on key KPIs.
Saved hours are reinvested into deeper exploration (32%), upskilling (16%), taking on more deliverables (16%), and strategy (15%).

Nearly Half of Professional Creatives Bank 5+ Hours a Week With AI

Creative teams aren’t just squeezing minutes out of meetings — they’re clawing back real time. Over 45% of creatives now save five or more hours a week with AI, and 20% save 10+ hours.

Horizontal segmented bar chart titled “Hours Saved per Week With AI, by Percent of Creatives.” Distribution: 0 hours 1.2%; 1–2 hours 12.3%; 3–4 hours 40.5% (largest); 5–9 hours 26.2%; 10–14 hours 12.7%; 15+ hours 7.1%.

Teams use that time to boost both speed and quality, moving to a solid draft sooner and investing more in polish before launch.

Time gains are concentrated where production pressure is highest:

Nearly two‑thirds of creatives in tech (65%) save five or more hours per week, the highest by industry.
Designers report saving the most time compared to other creative roles, with 26.7% saving 10+ hours a week.
Nearly half of professionals working at agencies or consultancies (49%) are saving five or more hours a week. In addition, 28.6% of creatives working in production studios (video/photo/design) are saving 10+ hours a week with AI.

Independent research points in the same direction. A study by Harvard Business Review shows knowledge workers finish tasks 25% faster, with >40% quality lift on tasks with the help of AI. The first large real-world rollout also found an average 15% productivity bump — especially for less-experienced workers using a generative AI assistant.

According to Professionals, AI-Assisted Assets Are 6x More Likely To Perform Better on KPIs

Most professional creatives claim AI is meeting (or even beating) the bar. In our survey, 38% report that AI-assisted assets outperform human-only work, 36% believe it's on par, and only 6% believe AI performs worse.

Respondents most often point to improvements in:

Time to first draft (40%): With AI, teams spin up outlines, moodboards, and first passes in minutes, then spend the saved hours on refinement and stakeholder alignment.
Engagement (39%): Faster iteration and more variant testing means creatives can tailor hooks, personalize videos, and tweak headlines to audience signals in near real time, lifting likes, watch time, and dwell.
Cross-channel consistency (33%): Using AI with built-in style guides and brand prompts keeps tone, claims, and visuals consistent across channels and reduces handoffs that cause messages to drift.
Click-through rate (CTR) (27%): Subject lines, thumbnails, and call-to-action copy benefit from rapid multivariate drafting. Teams can ship more on-brand options, learn quicker, and converge on higher-click variants.

On the ground, brand and agency rollouts show the same value. IBM reports that generative AI tools cut design cycles from two weeks to two days for 1,600 designers, with leadership projecting a 10x productivity uplift as teams reinvest time into brainstorming and storyboarding.

Clorox also reports that AI now accelerates creative production and varianting across channels, improving cost efficiency without cutting headcount. It's proof that AI provides real operational lift, not just novelty.

A Quarter of Teams Say Most of Their Output Is AI-Assisted

AI tools are becoming an integral part of the creative production line, with 26% of respondents saying at least half of their deliverables are AI-assisted. It’s a clear signal that assistance is moving from one-off experiments to everyday workflows.

How much AI shows up depends on the job:

Visual design: For visual design teams, AI plays a role in a lot of everyday work — 25%-49% of deliverables is the most common range (35%), and nearly a third say half or more of their output now involves AI (30%). AI tools like image generators help designers test different art styles and move from moodboards to final assets faster.
Writing and content: Most writers say AI touches 1%-24% of their deliverables (42%), and about 1 in 5 report that half or more of their output is AI-assisted (21%). AI helps writing and content teams with everything from brainstorming to localization, showing up regularly without taking over the whole workflow.
Video and photography: Over half of video and photography professionals (54%) say 25%-49% of their projects have been touched by AI, while another 19% say half or more of their output now involves AI. Day to day, that might include tools like image-to-video or image upscalers for cleaner frames, plus auto-captioning, background cleanup, and batch varianting to speed up edits across formats.
Strategy and leadership: Strategy and leadership teams report steady AI use, with 25%-49% of deliverables the most common range (41%) and nearly a third saying half or more of their output now involves AI (29%).

Dashboard titled “Percentage of AI-Assisted Assets by Role” with four donut charts. Share of assets that are ≥50% AI-touched: Visual Design 30%, Writing & Content 21%, Video & Photography 19%, Strategy & Leadership 29%, with smaller slices showing other usage ranges.

This tracks with what’s happening in the market. By 2026, it’s estimated that 48% of social posts will be AI-generated, up from 39% in 2024.

HubSpot, meanwhile, found that marketers doubled their AI use between 2023 and 2024, with content creation leading the way. If you publish a lot, those numbers make sense. AI makes it easier to experiment with different styles, improve accessibility, and stay on brand.

Time Saved Is Being Reinvested Into Creative Exploration

Creative teams aren’t using AI to do less work — they’re using it to go deeper. Across every role in our survey, the #1 way people spend the hours they save is deeper exploration of in-progress projects, with 32% of creatives citing it as their top reinvestment.

Pie chart titled “How Creatives Reinvest Saved Time.” Most time goes to deeper exploration (~32%), followed by learning/experimentation and taking on more deliverables (~16% each), strategic planning (~16%), rest/recovery (~10%), and stakeholder/client communication (~6%).

In practice, that means more time trying alternate headlines and hooks, testing a few visual directions before committing, or reviewing extra cuts to tighten pacing and story. AI clears the early busywork so teams can spend more time improving what will actually ship.

Other ways creatives are reinvesting their time include:

Taking on more deliverables: 15.9%
Strategic planning: 15.5%
Rest and recovery: 10.4%
More thorough stakeholder/client communication: 5.6%

Stress Eases for Nearly Half of Creatives After Adopting AI

Stress is easing for many AI-using creatives, but the relief isn’t universal. While 48% report less burnout, 25% say it’s increased.

It seems contradictory, but the split makes sense: AI removes a lot of early-stage grind (research, first passes, accessibility), but some teams may feel pressure to do more with the time they gain, juggle more variants/channels, or climb a learning curve — all of which can push stress up if expectations or processes don’t adjust. Research highlights that new tech can increase workload and reduce well-being when poorly rolled out or paired with surveillance.

Some groups feel the relief more than others. For example:

Creatives in writing and content roles show the strongest decline in stress (68%).
Stress is also down for visual design (44% decreased), video/photography (46%), strategy and leadership (46%), and multi-disciplinary roles (43%).
Creatives working for production studios are mixed: 38% reported less stress with AI, while 31% felt more stress. This likely reflects heavier, deadline-driven production schedules.

Brainstorming Is the Biggest Time Win

While our survey found that AI cuts hours at both ends of the creative process, respondents most often pointed to brainstorming (49%) as the biggest time saver. Accessibility tasks (40%), first drafts (40%), and research (37%) weren't too far behind.

Brainstorming is where AI earns its keep. Instead of staring at a blank page, teams generate usable ideas in minutes and move on to shaping the best ones.Some teams even prototype digital human presenters during concepting to preview tone and delivery.

First-draft generation and research/synthesis play the same role: Briefs turn into structured outlines and workable drafts, while competitive scans and source notes come pre-summarized, shifting time from hunting links to shaping voice, narrative, and sequencing. This is especially critical for freelancers and solo creatives who don’t have extra hands on deck — half rank first-draft generation as their biggest AI time-saver.

Accessibility is the other big unlock, especially for visual designers who cited it as their top time saver (43%). Modern tools auto-generate subtitles and alt text, produce captions and transcripts, flag color-contrast issues, and batch fixes across large asset sets, which means campaigns ship faster and stay compliant without burning designer hours on repetitive cleanup.

Save Time and Create Standout Work With Magic Hour

AI isn’t a someday tool — it’s here, and teams are already putting it to work. A huge majority of marketers (90%) are using generative AI at work, and 71% use it weekly or more.

The takeaway is simple: Formalize where AI fits best in your process, and you’ll move faster with fewer dead ends.

If you’re ready to make AI part of your creative stack, Magic Hour is built for visual designers, video editors, and photographers. Swap busywork for momentum with tools like Image-to-Video, smart upscaling/cleanup, and caption generators so you can ship your best work with confidence.

Try Magic Hour for free today and discover what you can create without limits.

Methodology

Centiment Audience conducted this survey of 252 creative professionals in marketing departments who claim they use AI in their workflows for Magic Hour between September 16 and September 18, 2025. Data is unweighted, and the margin of error is approximately +/-6% for the overall sample with a 95% confidence level.