In 2024, every industry is racing to integrate AI, from chatbots that handle customer service to the generation of entire videos, songs, and written content. Companies are jumping on the AI bandwagon, seeking to boost efficiency, productivity, and personalization through ML and automation. At its core, AI became synonymous with the word “innovation.”
However, a slight but notable countercurrent is in the air. Some businesses, like Procreate, are taking a bold stand against AI, with its CEO James Cuda declaring that its product will remain AI-free to preserve authentic creativity.
Could this be the beginning of a new trend in which rejecting AI becomes a unique selling point? Will products created without AI soon be valued more for their authenticity and human touch in a world increasingly dominated by AI? Let’s discuss it all below.
Is it AI overload in the world?
The integration of AI into business operations is no longer just a trend — it’s becoming a standard practice. According to Statista, the market for AI surpassed 184 billion U.S. dollars in 2024, marking a significant increase of nearly 50 billion compared to the previous year. This rapid growth is expected to continue, with projections indicating the market will exceed 826 billion U.S. dollars by 2030. Over the past 6 years, AI adoption remained steady at around 50%, but recent data from McKinsey shows a sharp rise, with 72% of organizations now leveraging AI technologies to improve their processes and customer interactions.
AI is literally everywhere. Both large corporations and small businesses are increasingly integrating AI into their operations. Companies like Google, Meta, Microsoft, Apple, Tesla (and every single company you know) use AI across their products to optimize search algorithms, automate tasks, and improve productivity. They also leverage AI for personalized content recommendations, AI-powered chatbots, facial recognition, and to enhance user experiences in areas such as photography, health, and more.
Smaller companies also use AI to offer innovative, user-friendly solutions. For instance, Canva, led by its CEO Melanie Perkins, integrates AI to help users easily generate designs by offering suggestions, automating layouts, and even creating content. Character.AI allows users to interact with AI avatars for language practice, role-playing, and mock interviews, while Notion, founded by Ivan Zhao, uses AI to streamline content organization, helping users manage tasks, notes, and workflows more efficiently.
At its core, businesses do see the value of automating tasks with AI solutions. Kitrum’s expertise in AI software development can help your organization streamline operations and stay competitive.
Yet some might feel that there is too much AI surrounding us. While AI can significantly enhance efficiency and streamline processes, industries like music, art, design, and content creation often require a human touch and genuine human communication.
Many people find music created by humans more soulful and emotionally resonant. Paintings by real artists are valued for their unique individuality and expression, and content crafted by someone with personal experience carries a depth and authenticity that AI simply cannot replicate. Similarly, Gen AI transforms the design industry; however, it can’t fully replace human designers.
Certain companies are either choosing not to incorporate AI into their products or are feeling overwhelmed by its widespread presence. One vivid example is Procreate, a popular digital illustration app that has taken a bold stance against the integration of AI.
What is Procreate, and who is behind it?
Procreate is a powerful digital art app designed for iPad. It is known for its intuitive interface and professional-grade tools that allow artists to create detailed illustrations, animations, and designs. Currently, it has become a go-to tool for creatives due to its responsiveness, ease of use, and wide range of features tailored to both beginners and professionals.
James Cuda, the co-founder of Savage Interactive (the company behind Procreate), is driven by a deep passion for art and creativity despite not being a skilled traditional artist himself. His journey began with a personal quest for purpose, leading him to discover digital art while living in Tasmania.
“When I first moved to Tasmania, I really didn’t know what I was going to do with myself. I was playing a lot of video games, and I was not really focused on life. I was kind of rudderless. I just took odd jobs washing dishes and mowing lawns, whatever I could do to earn some money.”
James Cuda worked many jobs, including with oils and watercolors, dreaming of selling his art in galleries. Although he managed to sell a few paintings, he found it difficult to make a living as a traditional artist. Then, around 2000, he saw the rise of digital art online and realized this new medium was his true calling.
This experience eventually led him to start a web design company. However, he soon became disillusioned with the constraints of client-driven projects. He and his talented team, including engineer Lloyd Bottomley and his wife Alanna Cuda, transitioned to creating high-quality software, leading to the development of Procreate.
Inception of Procreate and lessons learned
James Cuda wanted to create software without budget or client limitations, which led him to start a new company focused on producing the best quality products. Having experience in web software, he found the transition quite natural. James Cuda and his talented team aimed to make the best software possible, regardless of the risk of failure, and it led him to the creation of Procreate.
Developing Procreate wasn’t easy, and James faced many challenges. He highlighted the importance of persistence, going through nearly 1,000 iterations of the interface before achieving the final design. One of the most valuable lessons for James was overcoming fear and trusting intuition. He believes it’s crucial for personal and professional growth. Moreover, his company, Savage Interactive, stands out by focusing on quality over speed, launching products only when they meet their high standards, and continuing to improve them even after release.
“I was lucky enough to be able to make so many mistakes along those ways, and each mistake you learn, and you build on, gives you knowledge that you’d otherwise weren’t able to have.”
The Procreate approach: anti-AI as a differentiator
So, what is the next step for an app like Procreate? Ideally, following the trend set by competitors such as Adobe Fresco (with Adobe Sensei), Clip Studio Paint (with AI-based pose estimation), and Autodesk Sketchbook (with predictive stroke), Procreate might consider implementing AI features. But it’s not about Procreate. Moreover, Procreate stands out by openly promising to avoid AI integration, prioritizing the preservation of human creativity and design over technological automation. Here is what James Cuda says about AI:
“I don’t like what’s happening in the industry, and I don’t like what it’s doing to artists. We’re not going to be introducing any generative AI into our products. Our products are always designed and developed with the idea that a human will be created in something; you know, we don’t exactly know where this story is going to go or how it ends, but we believe that we’re on the right path in supporting human creativity.”
Under the leadership of CEO James Cuda, Procreate has publicly rejected AI tools in its products, choosing instead to focus on preserving the human element in creative processes. Cuda firmly believes that incorporating AI would undermine the very essence of creativity that Procreate champions.
Interestingly, not only does Procreate choose to avoid AI in its products, but the company also refrains from using your images to train AI models. This demonstrates a strong commitment to privacy and values, ensuring that your personal data and creative work are protected and not exploited for machine learning purposes.
The bigger picture: will non-AI become a trend?
Looking at Procreate’s attitude towards AI, the question arises: will companies soon claim that the absence of AI is actually a benefit and that it’s now “cool” to stand out by rejecting it?
In certain industries, the answer is – yes. Industries like healthcare, legal services, and certain creative fields (such as art and design) are hesitant to adopt AI due to ethical concerns, regulatory challenges, and the desire to preserve human expertise and creativity.
In graphic design, some clients might reject AI-generated designs if they specifically prefer human-made artwork. AI designs may be perceived as less creative or authentic, especially in industries that prioritize artistic integrity. For example, Adobe, which has integrated AI tools (like Adobe Firefly and other AI-driven features in Photoshop), has emphasized that AI is meant to augment, not replace, human creativity. And this is an important thing to understand. Therefore, if you need genuinely original content, you still need a UI/UX designer to make it professionally crafted.
Serif, the company behind Affinity Photo, Affinity Designer, and Affinity Publisher, has positioned itself as a direct competitor to Adobe, totally avoiding heavy reliance on AI. Their software is highly praised for being affordable, powerful, and focused on manual tools rather than AI automation. Interestingly, on the Affinity forum, a user expressed concern when one of their works was suspected of being AI-generated and subsequently rejected. This incident highlights a growing trend in the market where AI-generated content is becoming less valued compared to human-created work.
One of the most important things that companies like Procreate are fighting for is the preservation of human creativity. If all designers start using AI to create new pieces of art, what will happen? Human creativity could become extinct. The art might even lose its sense.
Let’s take, for example, Salvador Dali’s most famous painting related to time, “The Persistence of Memory,” created in 1931. The painting is known for its surreal, melting clocks draped over various objects in a dreamlike landscape. Salvador Dali definitely put a deep meaning into this painting, like the fluidity and subjective nature of time, reflecting how it can become distorted in dreams and altered states of consciousness. The surreal imagery highlights how time isn’t fixed and how reality can decay, possibly inspired by Einstein’s theory of relativity.
This piece of art has a deep meaning, and possibly not even one. Will AI be able to put such a deep meaning into its art? What will people discuss when visiting art galleries?
As AI-generated content becomes more prevalent, a growing movement could celebrate the authenticity and personal touch of human creativity. Whether this shift will spark a new wave of “AI-free” branding remains to be seen, but it’s certainly highly possible in certain industries.
