What Google I/O 2025 just told the creative industry

Varun Khiatani of Talented explores how Google I/O 2025 signals a cultural shift in AI’s role within the creative industries and what it means for the future of work.

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Varun Khiatani

Google I/O 2025 might have started as a developer keynote, but it quickly transformed into something more, a cultural moment in consumer AI that we’ll refer back to for years to come. Teams across GSuite and DeepMind revealed the most deeply integrated suite of AI tools we’ve ever seen, something only an ecosystem like Google could pull off. But the most startling moment wasn’t an update to Gemini. It was Veo3, Google’s new video generation model Visually stunning, narratively coherent, and (let’s be honest) uncomfortably good. 

Shortly after the keynote, PG Aditya tweeted: 

It might have sounded like a joke, but look closely because it’s a warning. 

This isn’t another article about how AI is going to take your job. 

It’s about how the valuable parts of your job (the bits where you bring originality, judgment, and instinct) are under review. 

That goes for me. 

That goes for you. 

And yes, even for PG. 

Micha Kaufman, CEO of Fiverr, captured this shift best in a leaked memo: “Easy tasks will cease to exist. Hard tasks will become the new easy.” 

The worst response right now is to panic after every keynote. Especially because there’s a new one every other week. 

Instead, take a look at your workflow and be honest with yourself, what are you going to lose to AI. Understand where you still bring value, and then double down on it. 

At Talented, we’ve built this into our system. Every single employee has scheduled 1on1s with internal AI evangelists who help them map their workflows and identify custom AI interventions, positioning them to perform, not panic. 

Because the question isn’t “Will AI take your job?” 

It’s “What do I hand over to AI?”

Not all roles will be disrupted the same way. But here are some fault lines already showing: 

Film production is entering a new phase. While AI-generated films aren’t new (we probably created one of India’s first with Britannia 1947% More History two years ago), what’s changed is the fidelity. The outputs today look better, move faster, and cost less. That means film budgets should realistically be reconsidered. 

Photography, especially for ecommerce, fashion, and catalog content is seeing a shift. AI-generated imagery is getting adopted at scale for its speed, variety, and affordability. 

Paid media is poised to change too. With AI-assisted asset generation, media professionals can now test 10x more ad sets in the same timeframe, radically changing how performance is optimized. 

Influencer marketing is getting stranger. Last month, a brand we consulted with seriously considered replacing a real creator with a hyper-realistic AI model for a product launch. Why? No scheduling conflicts. No IP disputes. No moral clauses to worry about. The content could be generated, localised, and iterated in minutes. The scariest part? The audience didn’t mind. Engagement is almost the same. Marketers need to prepare for a world where influencers can be trained, rather than briefed. 

You might have started in the creative business, but you're in the reinvention business now. AI isn't a wave of change like what we saw from mainline to digital, it's literally a new operating system. 

The only way forward is daily adaptation, because at the speed at which change is coming, you could very well be outdated by lunch.

This article is penned by Varun Khiatani, Strategy, Talented.

Disclaimer: The article features the opinion of the author and does not necessarily reflect the stance of the publication.

Varun Khiatani Veo3 AI jobs AI in creative industries Google I/O 2025