Advertising is made for the young by the young.
That’s conventional wisdom backed up by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which in 2025 reported the median age of ad industry workers was 39, compared to 42 for the broader workforce. Meanwhile, a report from the World Advertising Research Center estimates that only 5% to 10% of budgets are directed toward older consumers.
Today, brands focus on Gen Z customers and ad companies target Gen Z hires, all on newer platforms like TikTok. As the new guard sweeps in, the people who built the previous era creep toward irrelevance. As AI is impacting every aspect of the industry, it’s only natural to assume that it, too, will usher in a new era of ad makers and consumers.
It doesn’t have to. Some of the most compelling artists who incorporate AI I encounter are not necessarily very young workers coming straight out of school. They are older, established game designers, VFX artists, concept artists, animators, photographers, and directors who have spent decades devising concepts and developing characters, images, and entire imaginary worlds that have earned fandoms.
These professionals have played with light, composition, performance, movement, texture, and narrative. They know how to make the moment big and cinematic and, more importantly, they pick up on when it feels wrong.
AI can generate campaigns, but it cannot replicate genuine experience. And if these experienced workers can leverage the technology, it could, potentially, revitalize their careers.
The Last Generation of Analog Talent
The common assumption is that AI belongs to digital natives. But knowing how to run a new model is not the same as knowing what to create with it.
Those who came up in the analog era can immediately discern when an image lacks tension or a lens choice feels off. They know when a character could go viral and move them to the front of the scene. That’s judgment that comes with experience, not with AI.
Great things happen when proven talents are unleashed in new areas: Think of editors generating the images they once had to search for, or a game designer taking their vision to directing a commercial shoot.
It’s understandable, though, that agencies recruit youth for AI. After all, the algorithm on career sites seeks AI talent based on specific tool fluency, and doesn’t delve into broader AI exposure and career experience.
But those who are looking find a technologically attuned older workforce. A new report by job training nonprofit CWI Works and IPSOS found that 90% of people 55 and older who have used AI for work were somewhat comfortable with AI, and 50% were extremely comfortable using it. Among Gen X respondents, 71% have used generative AI, tracking right alongside the 74% of millennials.
This is not a closed-minded cohort. Just because someone isn’t a 22-year-old grad doesn’t mean they’re not curious about this tool. That curiosity, combined with decades of experience, is a powerful thing.
Prompting is not the profession
AI skills matter, but new tools expire quickly. Today’s specialization is tomorrow’s button click. Taste, however, can never become a button.
I have worked as a copywriter and creative director at agencies for a decade. When I started Dolsten & Co. 18 months ago as an AI-first creative agency and production company, I was building something new but was inspired by the stellar talent I’d learned from through my career.
In recent months, Dolsten & Co. brought in an experienced copywriter, game designer, and storyboard artist with decades of experience to work on board. The copywriter built an immersive digital experience for us, while we enlisted the game designer to build a world for a TV commercial, and the storyboard artist shaped a beautiful narrative for a brand film. Their careers had been displaced by industry upheaval and hiring biases—consolidations, cost cutting, and a push for offices to “look” younger—but talent remains, and the three are shaping brand narratives and AI-driven content for leading brands using their rich experience.
I knew that the AI skills would come, and that they’d enable these kinds of valuable, second-act experts to bring incredible ideas to life. Our hiring philosophy has brought incredibly diverse talent.
Experience is never obsolete
Advertising is notoriously dismissive of older creative talent. Experience is expensive, and senior people are pushed toward smaller management pools. Specialists can find their craft devalued when the industry adopts a different production model.
These are valid reasons for the talent drain, but AI creates the possibility of a different trajectory. This doesn’t mean younger creators are less important. The most interesting teams combine youth’s speed, experimentation, and cultural fluency with the judgment and discipline of experienced artists.
AI will continue to automate certain tasks and compress workflows. As the creative industry dwells on what AI is replacing, the more provocative question is who it will allow to begin again.
