Artificial intelligence is opening a new era of work, as industrialization and computing already did at the time. The big difference, in this case, is that technology is shifting the value of work from execution to strategy, making professionals spend less time on operational and manual tasks, and more time coordinating systems, tools and AI agents, and focusing their talent on what really requires a human and irreplaceable vision.

This is stated by the artificial intelligence platform for the creative industry Magnific in a report in which it reflects on the beginning of the “no-collar economy”. The term refers to a new workforce, less hierarchical and more flexible. He presents it as the evolution of “blue-collar” workers, born in the first industrial revolution and focused on man tasks; and the “white-collar”, associated with the consolidation of corporate work linked to computers and the Internet.

According to the company, known until recently as Freepik, AI would be ushering in a new revolution, a third stage of work in which the traditional boundaries between disciplines begin to dissolve and in which what is relevant moves from what a person knows how to do to what ecosystem of tools they are capable of orchestrating to make an idea a reality.

“The ‘no-collar economy’ is breaking down the boundaries between who is a developer, who is a designer and who is a project manager“, they explain from Magnific in their white paper. “Developers will code less, but design more. Accountants will be architects of wealth. The lawyers will coordinate a large team of legal advisors. And we will all be free from the limitations of skills and empowered by the mere ambition to be more strategic and creative.“.

This means teams are becoming more flexible and cross-functional, moving away from rigid silos that slowed down work, and embracing creativity as a shared mindset rather than an individual capability. And it is being perceived in all industries, according to Magnific based on the activity recorded on its platform between October 2025 and April 2026.

The transformation of production derived from AI

The company has identified several common patterns in organizations that are advanced AI adopters:

• Fashion and consumer brands

Companies are using AI to generate large volumes of product images, adapt campaigns to multiple markets and accelerate launch cycles, something that until now has not been viable following traditional production.
Magnific points out that some fashion brands have reduced the time between concept and launch to market by up to 70%, according to data from Meticulous Research.

• Agencies, media and entertainment

The most advanced organizations no longer implement isolated tools, but rather complete systems that integrate imaging, editing, video and automation into a single workflow. Magnific maintains that competitive advantage lies in building collaborative infrastructure around artificial intelligence, not just in using the technology.

• Production companies and studios specialized in AI

The company assures that companies in this category are the ones that have grown the most in the use of its platform. It is characterized by operating through systems that connect generation, editing, image enhancement and video in the same environment. The result is small equipment capable of producing at a scale that previously required much larger structures.

• Retail, hospitality and professional services

Magnific notes that companies in these categories that follow the traditional production model have common problems: a library of resources that are outdated or do not fit the brand image, product images that do not generate conversions or that do not reflect the current identity of the brand. Rephotographing everything would not be practical, but with AI it is not necessary.

In this case, the main use of the platform is to improve existing assets, perform retouching and visual optimization tasks. Referring to data from McKinsey, remember that the best product images correlate with a reduction of 15 to
30% on item return rates.

• Film and post-production

Audiovisual studios are incorporating AI mainly in pre-production and post-production. The pattern observed by the platform is that the creative direction remains human, focused especially on the definition of characters and scripts; while AI is used to execute tasks at scale.

The impact of AI on creators

According to Magnific using data from LinkedIn, AI has already created 1.3 million new jobs worldwide, including new roles such as AI engineers. This, precisely, is the fastest growing position on the social network. Additionally, skills related to AI and machine learning are the most in-demand.

The impact of artificial intelligence is also seen in the possibilities it offers to boost ideas, projects and businesses. LinkedIn data shows that the number of people who added “founder” to their profiles increased by 58% between July 2024 and July 2025, more than triple that of 2022, and more than three in ten professionals say that AI has made them more likely to start a business.

Beyond the transformation that companies are experiencing, Magnific also points out that artificial intelligence is shaping a new type of creative professional. In this sense, he explains that AI is helping a new generation of creatives to do things that were not possible before and at a much greater speed.

“Independent creators are developing unique visual styles and building real audiences using AI as a creative tool and partner. The ambition is the same, but the production barriers have disappeared“, they explain from Magnific. This will push companies towards a new mentality, since professionals who have been trained with native AI workflows expect the organizations they join to operate at the same pace and scale. In this sense, the adoption of AI will be a determining issue for the hiring and retention of personnel.

The company defends that AI does not eliminate creative ambition; eliminates the limits that previously restricted it. “This is not the end of the creative profession. It is the
beginning of something much more ambitious. When something becomes cheaper to produce, we produce a lot more, which means we will need more people with messages to tell. The machine does the heavy lifting, but the vision is all yours“comments Joaquín Cuenca, CEO of Magnific, at the end of the report.

The company considers itself the promoter of this new revolution. It ensures that every month its members generate more than 100 million images and tens of millions of
videos using AI, thanks in part to an integrated production environment that he describes as “unique.” He affirms this from the legitimacy of having carried out internally the same transformation that thousands of organizations are now addressing worldwide, and encourages other companies to embrace new tools so that production stops being a bottleneck and begins to work at the scale demanded by an increasingly competitive market.

More info: The no-collar economy