Adobe claims that 75% of creatives now say creative AI is essential to their work, which might be true if you’re willing to severely restrict what your definition of a creator is.
On Tuesday, Adobe released its 2026 Creators’ Toolkit Report. According to Adobe, this report is:
“[A] global study exploring how content creators are integrating creative generative AI and mobile tools in their workflows, and what they expect from the next generation of AI, including agentic AI.”
And, according to the report, an impressive 87% of creators have said that using AI has accelerated the growth of their business. Allegedly, 63% of those polled said that creative AI has made them feel more confident as a creator.
Perhaps most significantly, 75% of creatives polled described creative AI as “integrated or essential to how they work.” And 40% of the respondents said AI-assisted content consistently performs better.
Adobe says that this is not without caveats, though.
Creators polled said that it’s hard to stand out in a sea of AI-generated content. 53% said that content volume makes it difficult to stand out, and 42% blame AI-generated content for making it harder for unique voices to stand out.
And yet, somehow, 85% believe that the work they create with AI reflects their unique voice. And 81% of those polled say that human judgment remains essential to creative taste.
Nearly 60% of respondents report that creative AI outputs need moderate to extensive editing before they’re ready to share. Adobe says that around 34% of respondents say it gives users more freedom to experiment and the confidence to pursue more ambitious projects.
Most creators report that audiences now expect them to disclose when they use AI, and that most can already tell when creative AI has been used.
Self-reporting suggests that almost half of those polled disclose when they use AI, while almost a fifth say they seldom do.
And, finally, 90% of these creators want to obtain copyright protection for anything they make with creative AI.
So it seems like the tides are finally changing, and that artists are coming around to AI after all.
Or are they?
What Adobe defines as a “creative”
If you’re like me, you saw “75% of creators now say AI is essential to their work” and said, “gee, that’s a really high number for something as divisive as AI.”
I mean, that’s really high. So high that I immediately scrolled down to see if Adobe and their partner, The Harris Poll, included the perimeters for the study.
And, as is legally required, they did. As expected, it puts all of the information above in a new light.
The study was done on 16,000 creators across the U.S., U.K., France, Germany, South Korea, Japan, India, and Australia in May 2026. A good sample size, but the more interesting part is who those creators were.
According to the release:
“For this survey, creators were defined as individuals who create and publish digital content several times per month to inform, entertain or engage an audience and generate income across digital platforms, with respondents comprising emerging and professional social-first creators rather than individuals employed full-time in traditional creative industry roles.”
So, essentially, social media creators are the only people Adobe has polled for this. Not professional creatives like graphic designers, photographers, film makers, or illustrators.
It’s just people who create digital content exclusively to share on “digital platforms.”
If you spend any time on any of the major social media platforms, especially Facebook and Instagram, this report suddenly becomes a lot less surprising.
It’s nigh impossible to know what percentage of images uploaded to social media are AI-generated, platforms don’t keep track of those numbers. Yet, it’s not much of a stretch to say that many, if not most, are.
I’d argue that this study is extremely biased and designed to make AI adoption in creative fields feel much stronger than it likely is.
And, for the record, I’m not saying that “individuals employed full-time in traditional creative industry roles” don’t use AI. Especially if you’re willing to include the entire breadth of AI tools, such as context-aware editing tools or AI-powered upscaling.
I am saying, however, that the point of this study feels very much like Adobe going out on a limb to say that AI tools, especially agentic ones, are far more widely supported and adopted than they are.
Stephan is the sports journalist for the Maple Grove Report.
