Hilary Chittenden: studios that can’t hire should start hosting

Hilary Chittenden, Creative Learning Consultant

We’ll blink and it’ll be 2029. Here’s how I think the first steps into a creative career might subtly change by then.

1. The tools move fast, but careers don’t.

Yes, AI is being adopted faster than anything before it, reaching 40% adoption in two years compared to five for the internet (LSE Growth Lab), and yes, it is changing how we work - I’m not pretending otherwise. But AI is a tool, not the whole toolkit: someone still needs the ideas, judgement and craft to use it well. And three years isn’t long. By 2029, we won’t have woken up in a sci-fi film (I hope!). As Cat How wrote for D&AD, it’s expectation, more than the technology itself, that’s closing doors on junior roles. So let’s take a breath. The fundamentals of a creative career (curiosity, taste, tenacity) will still be there. What might change is the route in.

2. The linear path is widening.

The well-trodden path of graduate to placement to junior creative in an agency was never the only one, but it often felt like it. So I predict that the dial will proudly shift. More emerging creatives will start portfolio careers, combining part-time studio work with freelance and self-initiated projects. Designing your own career becomes a creative brief in itself. Of course, that can take a privilege and safety net not everyone has, which is where the industry needs to play a bigger, more mindful role.

3. Taste is still learned in the room, just in different ways.

If AI can increasingly ‘do the do’, an emerging creative’s value lies in their opinion and taste, mostly learned by osmosis: overhearing a crit, listening in on the ‘over the desk’ ideation, watching how someone senior handles a tricky project. So I predict (or hope) that studios that can’t hire will start to host. Desk residencies and shared studios allow emerging creatives to work on their own projects alongside experienced peers. No contract required, but all the benefits of that precious osmosis, a community and, perhaps most importantly, somewhere to work that isn’t your bedroom.

So, gazing into my (perhaps overly optimistic) crystal ball, opportunities won’t disappear. They’ll just look less like a traditional career path and more like something you build with intention. Our job as an industry is to open the doors that make that possible for the many, not just the privileged few.