Writer jobs are down 28%. Creative director jobs are fine. Here's why.
The one thing you need to know in AI today | AI Ready CMO
Let me introduce a concept that I think explains what’s happening in the job market better than any “AI is taking jobs” headline: the strategy-execution divide.
It’s simple. Every role sits somewhere on a spectrum. On one end, you’re deciding what to build and why. On the other end, you’re executing someone else’s decisions. The gap between those two positions is widening fast, and AI is the wedge driving them apart.
Nowhere is this more visible than in marketing.
Bloomberry just published research tracking 180 million job postings from 2023 to 2025, and while the data is messy and imperfect, the pattern is unmistakable. Job postings overall dropped 8% in 2025. Most marketing roles hovered around that benchmark—nothing dramatic. But look closer, and you see the divide opening up.
Writers are down 28%. Copywriters, technical writers, people producing the 500-word blog post someone already outlined. Computer graphic artists—the ones executing layouts in fifteen different sizes—down 33%. But creative directors? Graphic designers who spend their time interpreting client feedback and making strategic calls about visual direction? Basically fine.
And then there’s the outlier: influencer marketing specialists jumped 18%. The only marketing role showing real growth is almost entirely judgment work. Which creator actually connects with which audience? What cultural moment should we tap into? How do we build a relationship that feels authentic? AI can’t do any of that. But AI can absolutely write your email nurture sequence, generate your product page variations, and produce your social media assets.
Execution work is declining while strategic work is holding steady. And this isn’t just about creative roles. Senior leadership positions across all functions declined just 1.7% while individual contributor roles dropped 9%.
Companies want more people deciding what to do, fewer people managing how it gets done, and even fewer people actually executing.
This makes economic sense, even if it feels brutal. The bottleneck used to be production capacity. Can we make this asset? Can we write this copy? Can we design this page? AI has essentially eliminated that bottleneck. Now the constraint is strategic: Should we make this? What exactly should it say? Who is it really for? Those questions still require humans.
If your job—or your team’s jobs—are primarily about producing assets, following templates, or implementing decisions someone else made, you’re in the danger zone. Not because your work isn’t good, but because the market value of pure execution is collapsing.
The people who answer “what should we make and why” are the ones companies are keeping. And the strategy-execution divide isn’t just about seniority. A junior marketer who owns campaign strategy is safer than a senior copywriter who executes briefs. A designer who shapes creative direction is safer than an art director who produces final assets.
So ask yourself: when someone describes your role, do they talk about what you decide or what you produce? Because the market is increasingly paying for one and automating the other.
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