There is a lot of noise right now about AI, new tools, and whether creatives who are not adopting everything immediately are falling behind. This question cuts right to the heart of that anxiety.

This question was answered by Wez Hawes, an industry leader and experienced creative professional whose career spans agencies and senior creative roles, and Emma Keen, a mental health expert who brings a grounded, human perspective to the pressures facing people in creative work. The conversation was hosted by Andy Wright, host of Asking For A Friend on Never Not Creative.

The process has not changed. And that is fine.

Wez is refreshingly clear on this. His process, from getting a brief, heading to a coffee shop, letting ideas marinate over a few days, and sketching in a notepad before ever touching a laptop, has not shifted. He is not apologetic about it either. The fundamentals of how good ideas happen have not been rewritten by technology, and Wez argues there is real value in protecting the habits that actually work for you.

Where new tools genuinely help

What has changed is how Wez presents and sells those ideas. He has started using AI-generated visuals to bring concepts to life for clients before a single pixel has been designed. He is spending time in Figma alongside his design team, watching the process rather than running from it. He has adopted Notion for organisation and structure. These tools are not replacing thinking: they are making the thinking more communicable, more evidenced, and more persuasive.

Take the pressure off yourself

Wez is direct about one thing: no one should feel obligated to become an AI evangelist or start giving TED talks on machine learning just because there is organisational pressure to do so. Unless learning a specific tool is genuinely fundamental to your role, nothing catastrophic happens if you do not master it by tomorrow.

Andy echoes this well: it is very easy to get obsessed with the shiny thing and forget what actually makes creative work good in the first place. The tools are there to make strong ideas richer, not to replace the thinking that produces them. Use what helps. Leave what does not.