New data shows job losses but rising wages, as Snap’s Evan Spiegel and industry leaders call for education reform and AI adoption.
At Snap Inc.’s headquarters, Otis College of Art and Design released its latest Creative Economy Report yesterday, offering a timely snapshot of a sector at an inflection point.
California’s creative economy, long a global engine of culture and innovation, now employs roughly 740,000 workers, accounting for about five percent of all jobs in the state. It also remains dominant nationally, representing nearly one in five creative jobs in the United States and nearly one third of all wages paid to creative workers nationwide.
The latest data reflects a shifting landscape. Creative economy jobs declined by approximately 2.9 percent in the past year, contributing to a broader loss of roughly 114,000 jobs since late 2022. At the same time, average wages have surged, now reaching more than two and a half times the statewide average, driven in part by growth in higher paying sectors like new media, film, television, and sound.
“California’s creative economy is not disappearing; it is evolving,” speakers emphasized throughout the program. According to Westwood Economics’ Tanner Osmond and Patrick Adler, artificial intelligence is not the primary cause of job loss. Instead, the contraction is tied to broader restructuring across industries, high operating costs, and post peak adjustments in sectors like film, advertising, and fashion.
AI’s impact is more structural than substitutive. Rather than replacing workers, AI is shifting task dynamics, automating routine functions while elevating creatives into roles that require oversight, judgment, and direction. The result is a workforce transformation already underway.
That transformation framed a headline conversation with Snap Inc. co-founder and CEO Evan Spiegel, who positioned AI as a leadership imperative. “In the early days of tools like ChatGPT, what mattered most was leadership role modeling their use. When leaders adopt these tools, it accelerates adoption across organizations and opens up entirely new ways to build and create.”
Spiegel pointed to AI as a force that can make work more dynamic and creative, not less, while also offering solutions to some of California’s most pressing structural challenges. From healthcare, where administrative costs can account for 15 to 20 percent of spending, to housing, where permitting delays slow development, AI has the potential to streamline systems and reduce costs if deployed effectively. “If we can demonstrate how AI solves real problems across society, we can also reduce fear around it,” he said.
The conversation extended beyond technology to culture and education. Spiegel identified education as one of the greatest risks facing California, noting that traditional models focused on memorization and individual performance are misaligned with a future that requires collaboration, adaptability, and fluency with AI tools. “We need to evaluate people based on how they work in teams and solve real problems,” he said.
Artist Refik Anadol, co-founder of Dataland, reinforced the idea of AI as a creative partner, describing it as both medium and mirror, a tool that allows artists to build entirely new worlds, often using their own datasets and archives. The discussion also surfaced ongoing tensions around intellectual property, attribution, and compensation, as well as the need for transparency and trust in how AI systems are built and deployed, offering a framework for how AI can be built with both creativity and responsibility at its core.
For Anadol, the artwork is not simply the final visual output; it is the system itself. “Our system is the artwork, it’s a living painting,” he said.
He described how his studio has prioritized transparency in building large scale AI works, including projects that have reached millions of viewers in museum settings. The more the process is explained, from where the data comes from to how it is used, the more audiences engage. “The more we demystify the system, the more connection happens – the honesty, the openness, the clarity; that’s what allows people to dream,” he added.
That philosophy is shaping Dataland, his forthcoming museum in downtown Los Angeles, scheduled to open this June as a space not just for exhibition, but for education and public understanding of AI driven art. The initiative also extends into a broader foundation focused on expanding access to AI literacy and creative tools.
At the same time, Anadol acknowledged the real tensions facing creators in this moment, particularly around authorship, attribution, and ownership. “These are real questions,” he said, pointing to ongoing debates around intellectual property and the use of training data.
Spiegel echoed that concern from a platform perspective, emphasizing the importance of protecting original work as AI tools evolve. “Ownership is incredibly important,” Spiegel said. “We think a lot about making sure these systems are not reproducing copyrighted work.”
For Anadol, the response is not to retreat from AI, but to redefine how it is built. Rather than relying on open ended or scraped datasets, he advocates for creators to develop their own archives, collaborate with institutions, and ground their work in intentional, ethical sourcing and in doing so, AI becomes less about replication and more about authorship; a tool for building entirely new creative worlds.
For the City of Los Angeles, the implications extend far beyond the creative sector. “The Department of Cultural Affairs is very proud to support the Otis College Report on the Creative Economy,” said Daniel Tarica, General Manager of the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs. “This information has been critical in helping to inform and structure the arts and cultural economy here in Los Angeles, and to demonstrate how integral arts and culture are to the broader regional economy.”
Looking ahead, Tarica pointed to a pivotal moment for the city. “With the World Cup just 60 days away, Los Angeles is preparing to host major global events, and we are ensuring there is meaningful arts and cultural programming at community activation sites across the city,” he said. “It is about telling authentic stories from within our communities.”
The Otis report underscores that the future of California’s creative economy will depend not only on technological adoption, but on the systems that support the next generation of creators.
“Today’s event reinforced that creativity remains one of California’s greatest economic strengths, and that Santa Monica continues to play an important role in that ecosystem. While the report highlights real challenges facing the sector, including cost of living and major industry shifts, it was encouraging to see that core creative jobs are still growing. The conversation around AI was especially timely, emphasizing that these tools are reshaping workflows rather than replacing creativity, and that communities like Santa Monica can help lead by supporting ethical innovation, workforce training, and long-term sustainability for artists and creative businesses,” said Sofia Klatzker, City of Santa Monica’s Cultural Affairs Manager.
The question is no longer whether AI will shape the creative economy, but how leaders, educators, and institutions will respond. In Los Angeles, where creativity has long defined both identity and economy, that response may determine whether the city maintains its position as the global capital of creative innovation, the shift is already underway.