2026 and the Year of AI.

You can’t go anywhere without seeing or hearing something about AI. It’s in the news. On our social media feeds. In the technology we use. It seems to surround us with every breath we take at an increasingly alarming rate.

This isn’t an AI hate post.

AI can be a wonderful asset. It’s helped me generate ideas for dinner and lunch, helped me visualize the centerpieces for my upcoming wedding, and let me gather research for a novel I have been working on that will never see the light of day.

It should be left at just that, an asset.

Instead, I am surrounded by businesses and people also using it as a way to easily create content for themselves.

As someone who loves and values art and writing and as a person who has quite literally spent their life being trained in the communications field, I have an issue with this. I’m all for using it for personal use, like I have done to generate pictures for my wedding, but when it leaks into the commercial space, that’s where I draw the line.

I get it, times are rough and money is tight for everyone. As someone who has been in the freelance business and working professionally since 2014, I’ve seen more ups and downs than I can count. It’s not always smooth sailing for independent people like myself to make a living out of doing what I love the most.

It would be a lie if I said that in the past 2 years, my freelance career didn’t take a massive hit. It’s quite literally tanked. In a world that already devalues art and literature, many of us are out here struggling to even make this worth it.

Just today, as I woke up thinking about the goals I have, I contemplated cancelling my website plan and throwing the towel in. The leads have crawled to a halt. Why should I continue to try, to pay money for so little return in my investment?

Then it hit me, that’s kind of where AI is going. It’s weeding out, slowly but surely, people like me who try to create honest and unique things. As easy as it would be to save myself that money and time, I refuse to do that.

When it comes to company layoffs, the creatives in that space are often the first to be consolidated. Instead of a whole marketing team, you are down to a few people, if not just one, doing the work of many.

It’s cost saving and effective, and it helps them with their bottom line.

What many don’t care to notice is how it impacts people like me.

What you don’t see is how many of us, who have been trained or held jobs in the field, struggling to make ends meet.

I didn’t go to a four-year university with a graphic design degree in one hand and in my other, a master’s degree, to become a millionaire. I did it because it was the only path I ever saw for myself as a career. Now, in 2026, I regret it.

The countless job searches across Indeed and LinkedIn. Scouring Facebook for any network connection I can make in my field to turn up empty-handed. Essentially, taking any full-time job I can, just to be able to survive this insanely expensive world.

Living in a county, where it’s not the wealthiest, I see the struggles that many businesses are facing. I get the urge to just let AI do everything and be done with it…but is this really the best way?

The competition is already fierce out there and now, I truly believe, we are facing the greatest enemy yet when it comes to this field.

What are your thoughts on AI?