FITC Toronto 2026
Reframing AI Without Losing the Artist
The creative industry is flooded with AI noise — tools promising to do the work for you, faster. The challenge wasn't technical. It was philosophical: how do you walk a room full of designers and technologists through an AI-powered workflow without making them feel like they're watching the machine take over? The talk had to model intentionality from start to finish, with a live demo that could go wrong at any moment and a thesis that had to land before a single tool was opened.
Keep the Creator at the Center
The goal was to demonstrate that AI tools — across the full Adobe ecosystem — are most powerful when they're directed by a clear creative vision, not used as a shortcut. Using The City That Grew Back as the throughline concept, I wanted the audience to walk away understanding that authorship isn't threatened by AI — it's what makes AI worth using. Every prompt, every tool choice, every edit decision in the demo was framed as a creative act.
A Room That Leaned In — and Kept Talking After
The talk landed to a packed house at a historic venue in Toronto, with engagement visible from the first slide. The live demo — moving through Firefly, Illustrator, Photoshop, Express, and Firefly Video — held the room through every tool transition. The AUTHORSHIP framing became the conversation anchor, and the "Every Step Is a Creative Decision" slide drew an audible response.
But the moment that stayed with me came after: a DM from someone in the audience who had walked away from her creative passion years ago, convinced it wouldn't lead anywhere. She wrote that watching the talk made her realize she was exactly where she needed to be. That's the whole point.
Attendees — from design students to seasoned practitioners — left citing the Adobe workflow demos as immediately useful and the intentional AI framing as the perspective shift they didn't know they needed. One volunteer stage manager noted the core takeaway: you still have to be the one thinking. Another attendee described FITC's theme of "Rebirth" as no coincidence — and tagged the talk as part of why.
The "create with intention" message resonated well beyond the room.
