How Digital Tools are Reshaping Creativity in Art

Chris Lonsdale

Andy Warhol’s famous quote from 1963, ‘I think everybody should be a machine’, seems particularly pertinent against today’s ever-expanding backdrop of mechanical art making, and the tensions rising between many artists and the evolution of AI.

Warhol was clearly reflecting on his own methods of production and artistic process while also challenging society’s notions of creativity. Although the art-historical moment in which he was speaking differs greatly from our own, his statement remains important to consider today.

The recent curriculum and assessment review suggests that it has addressed AI but can it truly be covered effectively? By its nature, AI develops exponentially, so does that mean we will always be teaching reactively? Do we know more or less than our students about AI? Should we be embracing it in the classroom?

By asking these questions, I want to dig into how AI is already influencing creativity in our lessons, what else might be ahead of us, and how we can coexist – even thrive – in response to its influence.

Finding a framework

Some friends in creative industries are understandably wary of AI, particularly in the field of graphic design. The basic cost of using it to run projects, respond to pitched ideas, provide solutions and visual outcomes, makes the technology a no-brainer for companies looking to increase their profit margins, pushing the creativity of human designers to one side.

For screen-based jobs such as graphics, illustration and various forms of animation, there is a high chance that cognitive labour will be replaced, or at least diminished, within years. What does that do to our decisions on how to teach art, craft and design in the classroom?

At my school, AI is many things to many people, including a useful kind of assistant. Its administrative benefits include managing essay plans and structures, generating compositions in painterly styles to work from, summarising information about artists or movements, and even sourcing locations for photo shoots.

And this is not unique to my school – the Pearson School Report 2025 revealed that, at the time of asking, 41% of art teachers had used AI tools in the previous fortnight.

Conceptually, AI can of course, lead some students to feel they do not need to learn ‘everything’ but just gain enough knowledge to progress, reducing their need to think deeply. This mindset could have strong repercussions if left unchallenged.

Moreover, in art, where understanding concepts is so necessary to fully grasp purpose, becoming over-reliant on AI may lessen some students’ ability to generate truly personal responses to process-led exercises.

In my experience, however, students aren’t using AI to cut corners but so much as to understand a tool they have available to them; for example, as a guide, a framework or a form of access to feedback.

Engaging creatively

As teachers, we must carefully balance considerations of AI in how our classes approach topics – such as writing about artists, or generating ideas at the beginning of a practical project.

Keeping students engaged with delivery as they ask why they are learning something they know might be managed by AI in the near future can be a challenge. After all, our students are astute at knowing when something is purposeful or bluster. Yet the way they interact with AI can be highly creative – and purposeful too.

Consider a student who engages primarily in concept, who may want to maintain conceptual control over a fully developed, fully AI-generated project. If that student has explored artists like Warhol, Sun Yuan, Peng Yu, or other practitioners engaged with mechanical processes, they may well develop a strong, intelligent concept to support the fact that the work they produce can be all AI-generated.

In this scenario – which may already be happening in some classrooms – the student could use AI to facilitate their project, refine prompts (note that effective prompting can be difficult – it demands careful input and thought), record conversations, collate imagery and successfully document their development.

This student will effectively be in charge at every step of the way, making aesthetic decisions about the imagery generated and refining each written output until they are satisfied with the results.

Prompting possibilities

If AI remains a tool in a project, and the student is in charge of it, who has the editorial and creative rights to such a project?

In my previous school, I invited learners to get inside that question with a project titled What Is Truth? Students created AI-generated portraits, AI-generated news articles about refugees and AI-generated artworks, responding to major pieces in the canon of Western art, such as Gericault’s Raft of the Medusa.

One student responded by imagining an entire country with a historic backstory, leadership profiles and pictures, even creating maps. All that was driven by the possibilities of AI within the conceptual framework of production – and it prompted deep discussions about authorship, ownership and creative output for all of us.

As educators, it is currently within our remit and responsibility to become, if not an expert, then a facilitator, of AI in our specific subject. To be informed is to ensure we can present, with prudence, how it can be used to support students as they learn and explore the parameters of this new world.

Shifting routine tasks to AI can free us to make core skills – creative thinking, technical mastery, and conceptual understanding – more central in the classroom.

Perhaps students could work with an AI partner for reviewing ideas before bringing them back together for the human critique. Perhaps they could play and experiment with Warhol’s concept of ‘being a machine’.

Discovering the benefits

AI is the future – it’s on the way, and it is approaching the classroom at speed. Of course, we should not give up on teaching the fundamentals: observational drawing, composition, colour theory.

We must make sure our students keep sketchbooks, and we must keep running trips to galleries. At the same time, however, with AI, we can also ask our students to do what they do best: test the limits of something until they discover how to use it for their own benefit, as well as the benefit of their own creative processes. As teachers, we can do the same.

To find out more about Pearson’s work to cultivate a creative curriculum, visit go.pearson.com/creatives