The Dirty Little Secret of Creative Agencies: They All Use AI. Few Will Tell You.

Most creative teams use AI on client work. Many never mention it.

That is the dirty little secret, and it is not a small one. In Envato's 2026 State of AI in Creative Work report, 87% of creatives said they use AI at work and 58% use it every day. More than half of the creatives who use AI said they have used it on client work without saying so. And nearly six in 10 creatives on teams said there is no written AI policy where they work.

So if you have hired a creative agency or designer or freelancer lately, there is a good chance AI touched your project. There is also a good chance nobody told you where.

Why the silence

It is not always sneaky. A lot of it is that nobody wrote the rules down. In the same report, 46% of creatives called AI just another tool, no more worth declaring than a Photoshop filter. Only 7% said they felt uncomfortable staying quiet.

The other reason is the slop label. Many agencies assume that when a client hears "AI," they picture generic, soulless work. So they say nothing instead of showing the process.

The result is that clients are left guessing. You cannot tell where AI sits in your project or who checks it. That is the real cost of the silence.

What AI actually does

Here is the part agencies are afraid to say out loud: AI is extremely good at the unglamorous middle of the workflow.

• Resizing and versioning a campaign for every platform
• Captions, transcripts and formatting
• Research and first-pass organization
• Anything with a documented SOP
• Background agents that run routine tasks while the team works on the real problem

When those steps are systematized, the same checks run every time. That means fewer errors slip into the creative, not more. Less time goes to grunt work, and more goes to the thinking.

What it never does

AI does not set strategy. It does not decide which concept is right for your audience, and it does not make the final call.

Those stay with people, because they depend on experience: knowing your market, knowing what a buyer will believe, knowing when something looks finished but is wrong for the job. Even image generation, in our process, enhances the work. It never replaces it.

AI slop is a process failure

So where does AI slop come from? Not from the tool. It comes from a poor prompt, no brief, no references and nobody checking the result. AI needs to be systematized.

When the process is weak, AI makes weak work faster. When the process is strong, with a clear brief, locked brand references and a person making the final call, AI becomes a quiet advantage. The difference is guardrails.

Don't be the ostrich. You need to know.

If you do not ask how your agency uses AI, you might be served slop and never find out. Burying your head in the sand protects nobody. The agencies doing this well are not afraid of the question. They have an answer written down.

Ask for the policy

So next time, ask your agency: what is your AI policy?

Here is ours: Graphic Dojo AI policy. It covers where we use AI, where we never do, how your data is protected and who owns what.

It doesn't have to be a secret. Ask the question and expect a written answer.

Source: Envato, The State of AI in Creative Work 2026 (1,033 creatives, 103 countries, fieldwork September 2026).