Design
Upskill that kills: A creative’s survival guide to AI
October 2025Opening a new AI tool is like opening a box of IKEA furniture: it looks like you’ll have the shelf ready in ten minutes, but as soon as you take out the pieces, you’re facing a parallel universe of screws, confusing instructions, and an Allen key that refuses to cooperate.
The funny (or frustrating) part is that AI feels the same. Every week, a new tool comes along promising to revolutionise everything: “faster, cheaper, more creative.” The demos are flawless, the results look like magic. But then you try it yourself… and the magic takes a little longer to show up.
The fatigue of the “new toy”
This constant race to keep up has a bright side and an exhausting one. On one hand, it’s exciting to see the industry reinvent itself almost daily; on the other, your brain begs for a break. At elespacio, designers describe it as that mix of curiosity and exhaustion that appears every time you have to “level up” yet again.
Many agree that the most frustrating part isn’t learning, but the gap between the promise and the reality. Tools are presented with dreamlike examples, but achieving those results requires much more practice and creative intuition than they tell you. It’s not enough to throw in a clever prompt and wait for miracles. AI works — yes — but only when you know how to guide it.
Spoiler: you don’t need twenty AI tools to feel productive.
Still, something changes once you get past the chaotic discovery phase and start to really understand what each tool brings to the table. Suddenly, AI stops being background noise and turns into a useful assistant — it helps with drafts, speeds up experimentation, opens new visual paths, or frees up time for what actually matters.
And the data backs it up: according to Adobe, 58% of creatives say that thanks to AI, they can now produce more content in less time. But the interesting part isn’t the quantity — it’s the side effect: that extra time becomes mental space to think better, plan more strategically, and enjoy the conceptual side of the process.
Many creatives agree that the turning point comes when they stop experimenting for the sake of it and start integrating AI naturally into their workflow. “Once you understand what it can give you and what it can’t, it becomes genuinely useful. Not everything works for everything. But every tool has its moment,” says one of our designers.
“Once you understand what it can give you and what it can’t, it becomes genuinely useful. Not everything works for everything. But every tool has its moment.”
The trick is to choose the right pieces. You don’t need twenty tools open at once — two or three that truly fit your workflow will take you much further. Like in design, less is more.
And that’s where the creative maturity of this new era lies: not using AI for everything, but for what really adds value. Automating the tedious doesn’t kill creativity; it gives you back the time to think, improvise, and create more thoughtfully.
Surfing the wave without drowning
Luis, one of our designers, puts it best: “I don’t try to test everything. I just surf the wave.” That mindset: light, critical, drama-free, might just be the healthiest one.
“I don’t try to test everything. I just surf the wave.”
Some people have a folder full of “AIs to test someday.” Others skip them altogether. In both cases, the logic is the same: don’t chase every novelty as if it were the ultimate one. If something fits, great. If not, keep scrolling.
According to the AI & Creativity: Survey 2025 by Bread & Circuses, only 14% of creators use AI in more than 25% of their creative process. Most use it as support — to plan, edit, test ideas, or tweak details. In other words, we’re still in the exploration phase.
The balance between human and artificial
In that context, what matters isn’t how many AIs you know, but how you integrate them without losing your voice. The real risk isn’t that AI will replace you; it’s that it might crowd your mental space until you stop sounding like yourself.
“I’ve learned not to rush. If a tool doesn’t fit, I let it go. Another one will come along. It’s not about being everywhere, it’s about staying critical,” said Bruno, one of the designers on the team. That healthy distance, somewhere between curiosity and scepticism, is what keeps creativity alive.
“The real risk isn’t that AI will replace you; it’s that it might crowd your mental space until you stop sounding like yourself.”
Creativity needs air, pauses, and room for mistakes. If you spend your day jumping from one tool to the next, your work stops being a living process and turns into a checklist. That’s why learning when to stop is also part of this new kind of 'upskill'.
Build your own manual
If you’re figuring out your relationship with AI, here’s a quick list of unofficial instructions:
→ Pick your pieces wisely. Not everything that shines on Twitter is made for you.
→ Adjust with patience. AI improves WITH you, not against you.
→ Avoid the endless tutorial loop. Doing beats watching.
→ Embrace the chaos. Sometimes it’ll flop, other times it’ll be pure magic.
Because yes, AI can frustrate, but it can also inspire. It’s that unpredictable roommate who drives you mad with their mess but surprises you with brilliant ideas you’d never have thought of alone.
Your new collaborator (unpredictable, but Inspiring)
AI isn’t just another tool you control from start to finish — it’s more like a collaborator in the studio.
Sometimes it gives you exactly what you expected; other times, it throws in a curveball you didn’t see coming. That blend of predictability and surprise is what makes working with it so unique. Like any creative exchange, it won’t always land — but when it does, it pushes your ideas further than they would have gone alone.
