I was giving someone some concert tickets for their birthday. Concert tickets these days are pretty ugly, or are completely virtual. I wanted to have something in the card, so I had ChatGPT make up some concert tickets based on the promo image, and had them printed on card stock. I’d never hire someone for this. Prior to AI being good enough to do this on its own, I used Canva, and before that it was Photoshop… just skipping the concept all together. ChatGPT still did some things I didn’t like, and token limits were an issue, but it was good enough, which is really all I’m going for when it comes to a symbolic gesture that only 2 people will see one time.
With birthday cards, decades before AI, there were software packages to print cards at home. My dad still uses one. I made a card myself just using Affinity Photo, and 80% of the time I just skip the card, because no one really cares. I have to imagine the percentage of people hiring designers for bespoke cards is in the single digits, or possibly less than 1.
For commercial work, restaurant menus, promotional signs/banners, etc. I totally agree. AI makes the company look cheap and sloppy, and the companies need those things and get a return on the investment.
That's especially likely in situations such as the Fleadh, where there's a sudden glut of event posters and every venue revamps their promotional material / menus / etc all at once. The intensity means its much more likely to provoke a widespread backlash.