AI Didn't Take the Jobs "The Real Cause Behind California's 14% Creative Economy Workforce Decline"

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.