Animation in 2025: "If AI Can Do It, Maybe It Wasn't That Original"

In 2025, animators are living through the most disorienting creative revolution since the shift from hand-drawn frames to digital. We're talking about AI that can generate entire sequences, mimic any voice, and produce in minutes what used to take weeks.
But nobody really knows what this means yet.

​Bohdan Lysyk, CEO of and action, sat down with eight creative professionals navigating this transformation. The conversations weren't just about technology ─ they were about identity, craft, and the uncomfortable question lurking behind every AI-generated frame: if a machine can do what I do, what am I really here for?

AI’s Gone From Tool to Co-Creator

​Khalid Latif, global executive creative director at VML Health, captures the shift in workflows: "AI isn't just influencing creativity anymore. It's right in the middle of it. A couple of years ago, I thought of it as a helpful tool to speed up repetitive tasks. Now? I see it as a weird creative partner. Weird, but true!"

​Dillah Zakbah, creative director at Uncommon Creative Studio, describes AI as "the unpaid intern of the animation world. It is doing the grunt work at speed and scale. We use it for proof of concepts, for animatic storyboards, for a crunch production shoot. It wasn't perfect, but it let us prototype 10x faster and test multiple directions before committing to the clients."

​Mat Delorenzi, executive producer, shares how "AI has massively transformed our workflow. We now optimize processes that previously added days or weeks to our pipeline, producing work in a fraction of the time. Building decks, storyboarding, rough animation mockups, and style frame samples are all tasks we've kept in-house, reducing costs and increasing profitability."

For one of our projects (IT Arena Conference), we pushed AI to its limits, using Stable Diffusion for metaphorical visuals that blended technology and art, Midjourney and GEN-2 for future-tech sequences, and AI tools to create the host herself in 3D. Which appeared to be a huge success, because still ideas came from the team, and AI helped to generate these ideas in extraordinary form.

The Economics: Real Savings Meet Hidden Costs (And Nobody's Sure Which Wins)

While industry transformation often sounds abstract, some studios are seeing real financial impact. In some of our current projects, we're saving anywhere from 5% to 30% ─ mostly in areas like voiceover, sound design, and storyboarding.

However, the reality on the ground is more complex. The team at Analog ─ Mike Merron (founder and managing director), Arvid Niklasson (co-founder and executive creative director), and Federica Omodei (executive producer) ─ reports mixed results: "While we're open and positive about the shift in workflow, many AI models still overpromise and underdeliver. Yes, some iterative tasks have sped up, but the past year has also brought a fair amount of frustration and wasted time. So in terms of costs, the impact has been negligible."

Dillah also warns about efficiency's hidden costs: "The myth that AI will make us more 'efficient' across the board. Efficiency isn't always a good thing in creative work. Sometimes the inefficiency is in the process. The weird tangent, the failed draft, the conversation over lunch that turns into a campaign idea. If AI turns creativity into a checklist, we risk making work that's soulless, safe, and forgettable."

The Client Reality Check: "Wait, Why Isn't This Cheaper?"

But what about the people writing the checks?

While some clients understand they're paying for ideas, not tools, others are cautious. Mat: "Clients ─ especially at the corporate level ─ are still very cautious. Generative AI raises ongoing concerns about plagiarism and IP ownership."

This caution is creating a pricing paradox. "AI may reduce pixel-pushing by mid-level creatives, but the overall workflow still involves extensive editing, reviews, and revisions ─ all of which take time and effort," Mat points out. "Plus, there are token and credit costs associated with each AI-generated iteration."

The Analog team observes a fundamental shift in how projects begin: "When was the last time a brief came through with only references in it? From the get-go, clients and agencies are already iterating through countless variations of style frames, refining imagery to a point that is already beyond the ability of existing 'traditional' studios. Studios such as Analog are having to adapt and embrace the tooling, becoming experts not only in how to use AI, but also in why and where to apply it. We describe the current moment as a kind of AI Cambrian Explosion: a proliferation of tools, models, and agents all vying for dominance, with no clear winners and no single way of doing it."

The Great Democratization (Or: How Everyone Became an "Animator")

The most significant disruption may be the lowering of entry barriers. Getting into animation used to feel almost impossible. It was this niche, intimidating space where you needed to study, take courses, maybe have some kind of art or design background. But now, you can just write a prompt, pay for a subscription, and suddenly, you’re making animations. The whole psychological barrier is disappearing.

This democratization creates inevitable market consequences. When you can create something in a few hours that previously took a week for some simple social media post, every small business can have its own content generation machine. And as soon as this becomes a mass weapon, there will be an overwhelming amount of content.
A concerning trend is emerging: aesthetic homogeneity. "We're seeing a lot of AI-generated animation that looks like a fever dream on drugs. All the melty limbs, glitchy transitions, the same Midjourney aesthetic recycled endlessly. Or the 'Ghibli style' / 'turn me into a plastic toy trend'. Just because you can doesn't mean you should," Dillah warns.

Job Market Chaos: Who Survives the Shuffle?

We're witnessing the birth of a new generation of AI artists. Humans must first have taste ─ understanding what appeals to audiences and what unique value they can create. They also need to grasp fundamentals: styles, illustration techniques, lighting, character design. This knowledge is essential for clearly communicating what you want from AI.

For traditional illustrators and motion designers, developing art direction skills keeps you relevant ─ handling style, storytelling, and technical execution through AI-generated work.”

The implications for emerging professionals are significant. "Junior and mid-level professionals just entering the field will face the steepest challenges ─ knowing the foundations of your craft won't be enough to secure a job," Mat Delorenzi warns. "There will be an expectation to arrive as a one-person creative studio with proficiency across multiple AI tools."

The real survival skill isn't just mastering the latest AI tool; it's doubling down on what makes you irreplaceably human.

Khalid: "I often ask creative teams to use AI as a filter: use it to get obvious, first-ideas out fast. Clear the system. Then use your own creativity, experiences, and insights to push for something original. My rule? If AI can come up with it, it probably wasn't that original to begin with. People notice when something's been made with care, when there's heart in it.”

You can always tell when it’s just AI, when there is no soul, no story, no style. It’s the stuff you scroll past without thinking. But when you mix classic animation tools with AI, that’s when things get interesting with human originality, uniqueness, and real storytelling.

The Resistance: "I Don't Use Unethical AI"

Not all industry voices share the optimistic view of AI integration. Mike Middleton, creative director, offers a counterpoint: "The first impact is job losses. I've seen a lot of people, from young animators to senior creatives in the computer games industry, lose their jobs. Automation is used to deskill, lower wages and salaries, not help the people it displaces."

Mike challenges the quality improvement narrative: "Will it lead to higher quality content? Automation tends to lead to increased production of lower-quality goods. And that's what we're already seeing. The internet is flooded with animated garbage. I specifically avoid using unethical AI, and companies that use it."

The Verdict: Adapt or Die (But Keep Your Soul)

Studios are responding strategically in different ways. Some studios ─ like ours ─ are embracing AI partially, as a competitive edge. Others are going the opposite way, branding themselves as completely AI-free and using that as their unique angle. Then there's a third group going all-in on 100% AI-generated content.

That's animation in 2025 ─ a beautiful, terrifying free-fall where yesterday's rules don't apply and tomorrow's haven't been written yet.

We started with an uncomfortable question: if AI can replicate your work instantly, maybe your "creativity" was just expensive pattern recognition.

But something is becoming clear: in a world where anyone can generate visuals with a prompt, the impact happens when creators stay genuinely connected to their audience. The studios that survive won't be the ones with the best AI tools ─ they'll be the ones who never forgot that animation was never really about the pixels. It was always about the pulse underneath.