TLDR: The Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) has released its 2025 SCAD AI Insights Report, emphasizing the enduring role of human creativity alongside artificial intelligence. The report, developed by SCADask, highlights findings from the 2025 SCADask AI Summit, where industry leaders affirmed AI’s ability to augment human productivity and deliver bottom-line benefits, with two-thirds of surveyed leaders reporting decreased operational costs and nearly a quarter expanding teams with AI-focused roles. SCAD is further integrating AI into its curriculum with a new Bachelor of Design in Applied AI and a minor in Applied AI.
SAVANNAH, Ga. – The Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) proudly announced the release of its 2025 SCAD AI Insights Report on July 17, 2025. This comprehensive report, developed by the university’s leading research team, SCADask, underscores SCAD’s long-standing commitment since 1978 to integrate cutting-edge technologies that empower students for their creative professions. Artificial intelligence is positioned as the next pivotal chapter in SCAD’s legacy of design innovation, serving to augment and amplify human productivity.
The 2025 SCADask AI Summit served as a cornerstone for the report, bringing together creative design industry luminaries, SCAD leadership, faculty, and students. This multi-day event featured world-renowned AI experts from influential global brands including Google, Maison Meta, Adobe, Meta, and Deloitte. A central theme emerging from their discussions was the unwavering importance of humanity and creativity, which are seen to endure alongside any technological advancements, past, present, or future.
Prior to the summit, SCADask conducted a survey of creative business leaders to gather their observations on AI’s impact within their respective industries. The findings revealed significant positive outcomes: AI is delivering tangible bottom-line benefits without negatively impacting job growth. A notable two-thirds of the surveyed leaders reported a decline in operational costs, while also celebrating increases in revenue. Furthermore, nearly a quarter of these leaders indicated that they have expanded their teams by creating new AI-focused roles.
Dan Bartlett, Dean of the School of Animation and Motion at SCAD, articulated the university’s philosophy on creativity in the age of AI, stating, “The creative process is not about having a broad palette of tech or software skills. It’s about having a flexible one where the focus is on the vision or an idea along with the ability to create an outcome rather than the specific things needed to make it happen.” This perspective highlights AI’s role as a tool that offers infinite possibilities for designers across various professions.
In line with its commitment to AI integration, SCAD launched the SCAD AI Advantage Portal last year, a strategic resource hub designed to help designers seamlessly incorporate AI into their practice. Looking ahead, SCAD is set to launch a new Bachelor of Design in Applied AI this fall. This program is specifically designed to equip students with the skills to imagine, prototype, and direct how AI functions and how people interact with it. To ensure broad access to this rapidly evolving field, SCAD will also offer a minor in Applied AI, available to students across all majors, thereby empowering creative professionals in every discipline with the tools necessary to integrate intelligent systems into their future careers.
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The 2025 SCAD AI Insights Report not only showcases the latest applications of AI in student projects and alumni creative work but also underscores the fundamental importance of cultivating core design principles. It emphasizes that meaningful design work requires creatives to deliberately master the fundamentals of design to effectively leverage AI for optimal output.
