Otis College Report: AI Is Rewriting the Grammar of Creative Work — Not Eliminating the Workers Who Do It

When generative AI emerged onto the scene, California's creative economy began shedding jobs at an alarming rate — 114,000 positions, or 14 percent of the workforce, vanished between 2022 and 2025. The world quickly settled on a narrative: AI was replacing creative workers.

A new report from Los Angeles-based Otis College of Art and Design, released April 7, demolishes that narrative with data. The occupations most exposed to AI — writers, software developers, artists — actually grew during this period. The sectors that contracted most were film, television, and traditional media, gutted not by algorithms but by the collapse of Peak TV and the pivot to streaming profitability.

The verdict: the real culprits are structural cost pressures and industry restructuring — not artificial intelligence.

What the Numbers Actually Show

California's creative economy lost 114,000 jobs between 2022 and 2025 — a 14 percent decline. The film, TV, and sound sector contracted by nearly 30 percent; traditional media fell by approximately 34 percent. On the surface, these losses coincide with the ChatGPT release in November 2022. But the report's authors argue the pattern of losses does not match an AI displacement scenario.

AI는 범인이 아니다” — 캘리포니아 크리에이티브 이코노미 14% 감원이 남긴 진짜 신호
AI시대 인력 대체의 주요 원인은? 미국 오티스 대학 보고서 ” AI 도입과 겹친 할리우드 14% 감원의 진짜 원인은 피크TV 붕괴·스트리밍 재편” “AI는 일자리가 아닌 창작 방식을 바꾸고 있다”
K-EnterTech HubJung Han

Co-author Patrick Adler, founding partner of Westwood Economics and Planning Consultants, is direct: "The pattern of job loss in terms of the types of jobs that are being lost and when they're being lost does not support the fact that there's been this displacement of workers by AI." The losses instead reflect the unwinding of Peak TV, streaming platforms' hard pivot to profitability, and the migration of lower-wage roles out of California due to soaring living costs. Meanwhile, new media employment surged 47 percent, and streaming held near the national average.