And why it might matter more than the tech we’re obsessing over
D&AD’s AI & Creativity Report 2025, backed by Shutterstock, uses the word “taste” freely, assuming we all agree on what it means. “Creativity now belongs to those with taste.” “The human edge is taste.” “The future is taste driven.” But the report never really explains what it entails. It treats taste as if we all agree on it, as if it’s a universally understood skill we’ve been nurturing all along.
So let’s ask: if taste is the new skill, does that mean it’s been missing? And if it’s been missing, is AI really the threat or just a very good mirror?
In pitch work, taste doesn’t mean personal style or niche aesthetic references. It means discernment. It’s the ability to know what strengthens the idea and what dilutes it.
Taste is about restraint. It’s the invisible skill that shapes the treatment behind the scenes. It’s what helps you cut the beautiful but irrelevant reference, rework the clunky sentence that breaks the flow, or choose the one shot that quietly holds the emotional core of the concept.
In other words, taste isn’t what you add. It’s what you remove.
This is where the conversation around AI feels a little hollow. The real fear isn’t that machines are taking over our jobs. Perhaps they’re just replacing the complacent, the kind of creative who hasn’t developed or exercised “taste” in a very long time. As Ben Cooper puts it in the AI & Creativity Report 2025: “AI didn’t unlock creativity. It just exposed the difference between that and mediocrity.” In that sense, replacement isn’t a fair complaint when you’ve already given way to anyone—or anything—making decisions on your behalf, long before AI entered the picture.
If a deck made in Midjourney looks indistinguishable from a deck made by a creative director with twenty years of experience, maybe the issue isn’t the tool. Maybe the issue is that we’ve mistaken software literacy for vision.
Advertising has always struggled with this. For years, the industry rewarded volume, trend chasing, and reactive work over clarity. The moodboard became more important than the message. Directors were asked to mimic references rather than define a point of view. Strategy was siloed. Art direction became aesthetic coating. The deck got bigger, but the thinking inside it got blurrier.
Now AI is here, and it’s very good at being blurry. So yes, the sameness is spreading. But it’s not new. It’s just faster.
This is why taste is suddenly being named but still not quite understood. It’s not "a vibe". It’s a leadership skill.
In a treatment, it shows up as control. It shows up in pacing. In how you handle transitions. In knowing when to stop generating and start shaping. In building trust through clarity, not polish. Taste is not an aesthetic, it’s an editorial instinct. And if the pitch is a persuasive document, then taste is its integrity.
At Ghost, we don’t claim to own it. But we do practice it. That means making hard decisions in the layout room. Killing references that look great but don’t serve the story. Asking directors to define what they mean by “gritty” or “poetic” or “stylised.” Sometimes that means fewer slides. Sometimes it means slowing down. But the result is something clients can feel because the work holds together. And that coherence isn’t something you can't generate. You have to see it.
So if taste really is the new skill, it’s worth asking:
Why did it take AI for us to start valuing it?
What Next?
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