From print designs to TikTok videos, there’s a lot of pressure to deliver high-quality work across a number of channels—and do it fast.
Teams are overcommitted, overwhelmed, and struggling to keep up. Traditional agencies don’t provide enough support, and while AI is an incredible tool, it can’t do it all.
Still, amid the chaos, there’s opportunity too—a chance to reshape the way creative teams operate.
Keep reading for an in-depth, no-holds-barred look at where the industry is now, what’s coming next, and simple things you can do to get the most out of your team—while saving yourself (and everyone else) from burnout.
In fact, 97% of creative leaders claim that they’re satisfied with their current working model.
But are they really? (Nah.)
There are a lot of reasons for this, but a big one is that creative teams have been told that on average, 55% of projects are high priority, making it difficult to know where to start.
Saying no isn't always an option either. Leaders add that 35% of the time, the pressure to deliver comes directly from executives.
About half of creative leaders who have worked in the industry for more than 10 years say their teams are understaffed, but just 32% of those who have been in the field for 10 years or less agree.
In addition, those who have been in creative for a decade or less are much more likely to say they’re staffed just right (61% vs. 44%).
While it’s tough to know exactly why this disparity exists, it’s interesting to note that the evolution of social media as a marketing tool has significantly increased the demand for creative work.
It’s totally possible that staffing numbers just haven’t risen alongside the number of new asks — and leaders with less experience just don’t have the good old days (BTT, or Before TikTok) as a reference point.
Now, the bad: Despite their talent, most teams just don't have the time or bandwidth to execute their ideas to the fullest. Lower priority tasks, day-to-day administrative work, and mundane production assignments always seem to get in the way.
Not only can this kill creativity, but it can also tank employee satisfaction. No designer wants to spend all their time endlessly resizing when they could be coming up with the next big brand idea.
That’s one reason why 85% of leaders say they need to do a better job outsourcing. Finally, skilled creatives will have the bandwidth to focus on their areas of expertise—and others can tackle everything else.
Creative teams have quickly embraced this technology to manage demand, enhance the quality of their work, and boost efficiency—and it’s paid off.
Nine in ten creative professionals say they have the AI skills internally to meet the needs of the future of their business. Still, it’s critical to take an intentional, strategic approach to keep pace with demand.
Creating an environment that inspires audacious creative work is easier said than done. Creative teams must be open to big structural changes to unlock their full potential and avoid burnout.
Here is some unsolicited advice for creative leaders who are ready for change and ready to deliver impact:
Jacqui Morgan is not just challenging the status quo in social media strategy—she’s redefining what’s possible for B2B brands.
As Global Social Lead at Palo Alto Networks, a global cybersecurity leader, Jacqui blends creativity, bold moves and a relentless drive for innovation to elevate her brand’s online presence.
Q: Running social media for a tech giant must be a wild ride. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do at Palo Alto Networks?
A: I oversee our social strategy, which includes creating and managing the incredible content you see across platforms like LinkedIn, Meta, and X. Our focus spans across all our products and thought leadership efforts. We have a lot of different channels. All of those channels require support, and all of those channels require creative, so we are constantly iterating and working with our teams to put out the best content possible across all different verticals.
Cybersecurity is a very important topic. It’s probably up there with death and taxes as non-negotiables in life. Everyone has a computer, everyone has a phone and everyone needs cybersecurity in some way. And so we have a very big responsibility to make sure that we're talking about this topic in a way that people will get and understand.
Q: Every job has its spark—that thing that keeps you inspired. What’s lighting your fire at work these days?
A: Top of mind right now is doing things differently and leaning into creativity as we tell the stories that really matter to protect digital ways of life. In B2B tech, especially cybersecurity, it’s easy to fall into repetitive messaging. My goal is to make our content stand out!
It's important because, while we are business to business, we're not business to boring, right? We need to make sure that we're telling our story and reaching our target audience in a way that will make them pay attention and remember us at the end of the day. And you really can't do that without the right messaging and creative.
Q: Every job comes with challenges, and moving to an in-house team is often a different ballgame altogether. What’s been the biggest challenge in your role?
A: Coming from an agency background, I had a big learning curve moving in-house. The pace was still fast, but the volume of work—ensuring every stakeholder and product had the best possible content—was challenging. Also, deadlines are tight! We’re big believers in doing things fast but doing them right. We're a pretty lean team and we’re able to do a lot, which is a huge testament internally, but we really do rely on our partners for that extra support.
Q: We all know creatives often have sleepless nights over their projects. When it comes to creative work, what keeps you tossing and turning?
A: Well, I am a Virgo, so I have a lot of anxiety and detail orientation when it comes to everything. I have this toxic trait of always pushing and always trying to do more and to do it better. It's proven very helpful in my life. At the end of the day, what keeps me up at night is asking myself, “Could I have done more? Could we have done it this way?” and almost second-guessing a bit. But then when I see the excitement and the community response to things we're able to create, it makes me able to fall back asleep.
We have this big undertaking of being the cybersecurity partner of choice and talking about cybersecurity is a huge, huge responsibility. We have been tasked with redeveloping and igniting this social strategy across all different verticals, all different platforms. That is no small feat. I needed help, making sure that every single stakeholder and every single product and every single piece of content that we were putting out was the best possible. And that's where Superside came in.
Q: Everyone was talking about your bold moves during the big San Francisco cybersecurity conference. Spill the details!
A: Definitely! This past May, there was a major cybersecurity conference in San Francisco, but we decided not to attend. Instead, we took over a nearby hotel and hosted exciting online and offline activities. We showcased our Precision AI offering, held an AI-focused executive event and even did a drone show over the city. We were really able to drum up excitement on social media and beyond through paid and other digital avenues to get people excited for our AI event.
Something our CMO said was really inspiring to me. “This conference is great, but at the end of the day, a huge percentage of attendees are other cybersecurity professionals. Instead of just marketing to the existing community, why don't we reach out to our actual target audience in a way that matters?” Now I constantly think about that perspective when we undertake anything across any digital execution.
We also launched our brand campaign during that conference. And with this brand campaign, we were able to reach people differently, in a way that made them sit up and pay attention. Now people understand what it is we do and who we are. It was definitely the highlight of my personal career, being a part of that large campaign this year.
Q: We can’t leave this interview without mentioning AI. How do you feel about AI in creative work?
A: I think it's a great tool for supporting teams and brainstorming. And to get to a concept potentially. But, as a cybersecurity company, we know that while AI offers incredible opportunity, it also comes with risk, so it's important to prioritize security. Making sure things are secure is of utmost importance. So I think AI is absolutely a tool that teams should be using. How they use it at the end of the day needs to be right for them and right for the organization and secured at the end.
A Nonlinear Journey to Leadership
Kare’s career path wasn’t a straight line, which she proudly embraces. "In college, I majored in philosophy, which is a perfect background for a future head of creative. None of this was planned for me," she quipped. Her journey included running a jewelry business, launching and selling an internet company and eventually landing in the gaming industry before transitioning to Reddit. This diverse background provided her with a unique perspective on leadership and creativity.
Cultivating Creativity Beyond Work
For Kare, creativity isn’t confined to office hours. "I spin yarn, do collage, and even design board games," she revealed. These hobbies are not only personal outlets but also fuel her professional creativity. "The key is to have a personal creativity practice that keeps you satisfied, even when you’re not as hands-on."
“I have lots of hobbies where I can be creative. I think if you're a creative person, it infects so much of your life so that even these day-to-day activities you can approach creatively.”
Embracing Corporate Creativity
Navigating a corporate environment while staying true to one's creative self is a challenge Kare faces daily. "Comparison is the thief of joy," she noted, urging creatives to focus on their own journey rather than comparing themselves to others. She emphasized the importance of transforming mundane tasks into opportunities for creativity.
“You have to be creative about how you juggle priorities. Sometimes it feels a lot like mechanized robotic work, but you can be creative and come up with solutions to problems and it's just a new puzzle for you to solve.”
Empathy as a Leadership Tool
"Leadership is about more than just managing tasks; it’s about supporting people," Kare explained. She personalizes her feedback process, asking, "What kind of support would be most useful to you?" This approach builds trust and empowers her team.
Giving constructive feedback is crucial for fostering growth within a team, but it’s a delicate balance. Effective feedback should be clear, actionable and supportive. Kare encourages to start by asking “What kind of feedback feels most important to you right now? How will you best be able to receive it?”
Redefining Leadership with Authenticity and Creativity
When asked about her leadership philosophy, Kare's response was succinct yet profound: "You can still be yourself and understand KPIs". Her words resonate with leaders striving to integrate creativity into their strategic roles. By staying authentic, fostering creativity and building strong relationships, Kare exemplifies how leadership can be both innovative and impactful.
Marie Kare’s journey is a testament to the idea that great leaders don’t just manage—they inspire. For aspiring creative leaders, her story offers not just hope but a roadmap to thrive authentically in a corporate world.
Creatives in particular have little doubt about the benefits, with 96% saying AI will speed production and 93% indicating it will also elevate quality. Following suit, 89% of the executives realize how generative AI drives efficiency and unlocks new possibilities, like building custom image and illustration libraries and greater freedom and agility in concepting.
Everyone wants to get to the end results as quickly as possible. But, there’s more to AI transformation than simply picking the right tools. If that’s all you look at, you’ll fail more often than you succeed. Especially when the people leading change—the in-house teams—are already overcommitted.
Think bigger than tools and tech
You can’t just give everyone access to a tool like Midjourney and call it a day. A strategic, mindful approach makes all the difference. Successful AI adoption is multi-dimensional: Your people need to be prepared and your rollouts must be carefully planned for the highest-reward, lowest-risk implementations.
Put people first
The top three barriers to AI adoption—education, awareness and skill sets—all have rational and emotional components. You can counter fear with education. But, first, you have to identify the roots of the anxiety.
Meet with your teams. Have open conversations and assess where people really are. Find out what they know and don’t know—even if it’s different than you think or believe. Identify and empower dedicated AI champions who can help those with concerns overcome obstacles.
Look before you leap
As you determine where to integrate AI into your creative workflows, it’s tempting just to pick a process and dive right in. This is akin to knocking down a wall before checking to see if it's load-bearing or where the wiring and pipes might be.
Internal creative teams are experts at working lean and maximizing efficiencies. With this in mind, take the time to think holistically—looking at the entire blueprint of your creative workflows so you know where you’re making changes and why you’re doing so—ensuring that the problems you're aiming to solve will have a significant impact.
After all, there’s more to creative processes than production and AI can do more than generate images. Map and evaluate all of your workflows from early discovery to final delivery, determining where AI can add value to research, ideation, information sharing, data analysis, quality assurance, personalization, localization and more.
AI is here to stay and your transformation will be a long-term commitment. Your teams will need ongoing support. Your workflows will be updated time and again. Things will go right—and wrong.
You'll learn as you go—putting foundations in place, pivoting from unexpected detours and iterating on wins. Before you know it, building prompt and image libraries will be like second nature—and custom models and design systems will be the norm. It all starts by thinking outside the tools.
Every creative team I’ve overseen from DoorDash to Klaviyo, even here at Superside, is maxed out and battling burnout as a group and as individuals. No wonder the survey results came back saying 76% of creative professionals felt burnt out and 78% of their teams felt the same way.
In-house creative teams serve many stakeholders. They’re the guardians of the brand and gateway to creative assets for the sales team, marketing teams, event teams, product teams, people teams and more. Anything that requires graphics, video or design, comes to the creative team.
Popularity comes with a price
Would you like fries with that? The rise of digital media was one of the main reasons in-house teams came to exist. Instead of print, TV and radio campaigns, the number of channels and creative formats has exploded—like Big Bang-level expansion—and it just keeps growing. And the fact that it’s all online, means the people making the requests accidentally underestimate the amount of work involved in creating, editing and versioning creative.
Have you seen our new menu items? The move toward motion, video, AR and immersive experiences takes more time to produce and requires highly specialized skill sets. The battle for attention is getting epically harder and ad lifespans are shrinking to nanoseconds, driving the need for non-stop testing and iteration at the speed of light.
Next? Please pull up to the window… Here’s the catch: No matter how big or small they are or how efficiently they work, in-house teams inevitably end up as a bottleneck—a choke point between their KPIs and the entire company’s creative assets. All the work comes into one team, it’s all urgent—and there’s no way to get it all done.
Can I get a little help here?
Most creative professionals, 70% of them, feel that their team’s best talents are wasted on work that’s well below their skill levels and much less strategic to growth.
The solution: When these teams hit maximum capacity—which is always—they outsource. But, it’s far from a perfect solution—with 85% of teams thinking they need to do a better job choosing what they outsource and who they work with.
The problem: Even the best freelancers and agencies aren’t built for today’s digitally driven, AI-infused landscape. Starting from scratch and determining the best partner for each project is no way to scale. It’s likely why 51% of creative professionals have lost faith in traditional agencies. Honestly, I’m surprised that number isn’t higher!
The times they are a-changing. While traditional service providers struggle to adapt, failing to deliver on speed, quality and communication (or address a plethora of other performance challenges), partners like Superside, have risen to the occasion.
Before I joined Superside as CMO, I was also a customer. In 2021, my creative team at Klaviyo was seriously swamped. After exploring our options, we hired Superside. Why? What stood out to me was that Superside understood what it meant to step in and act like an extension of our in-house team.
They didn’t try to replace our expertise, they amplified it by serving as an extension of our team. Suddenly, we had a creative team serving our creative team. Our team was able to move faster, get more done and be more creative, without hiring more people or spending our limited budget on a fancy agency.
Ultimately, with Superside by our side, our creative team was no longer the “blocker.” Our internal stakeholders were happier—here’s looking at you Thuan Tran on our Growth team and Josh Mendelsohn in PMM—and our creatives were happier too.
