Braintrust’s Ben Cooper shares insights from D&AD Festival AI & Creativity Report Session

Last Wednesday at D&AD Festival in London, Ben Cooper, Founder and Innovation Director at Braintrust, took the stage with a timely and thought-provoking session: Shaping the Shift: Inside the D&AD AI Report. His slides from the session, now available and featured above, unpack the findings of new global research commissioned by D&AD and supported by Shutterstock, capturing the views of 300 industry leaders on the real impact of AI on creative work.

 

Billed as both a wake-up call and a roadmap, the D&AD AI Report, was designed to help the industry navigate the shifting terrain with clarity and confidence. From the evolving economics of originality to changing client-agency dynamics, the research lays out not just where AI is influencing creative work, but how leaders can respond.

“This is not a hype talk,” says Cooper. “It’s about moving beyond the novelty and tackling the very real shifts happening right now in how we create, collaborate and judge creative value.”

The talk explored how AI is changing the value equation for creativity. According to Cooper, as generative tools proliferate and execution becomes commoditised, the creative edge now lies in the intangibles: judgment, taste, weirdness, and intent.

“Creativity is being unchained. Trust is now part of the craft,” says Cooper. “The future belongs to those who lean into what makes them distinctly human.”

Check out the slides from Cooper’s talk above.