AI Made Your Work Easier to Copy—Here Is What to Do

Earlier this month, OpenAI publicly introduced a new capability—style transfer—that should alarm every illustrator, designer, and creative professional. It allows anyone to upload a handful of your images into a generative AI tool and instantly replicate your unique artistic style. The ease and accuracy with which this can be done are astonishing, if unsettling.

Recently, I discussed this very topic with creative industry leaders in an exclusive webinar—you can watch the full discussion here.

However, there is an important distinction: although anyone can now effortlessly produce convincing replicas of your work, OpenAI’s terms are explicit about ownership rights. Users who generate content in this manner do not automatically own rights to the resulting images unless they already possess rights to the originals. This clarity provides crucial legal protection—at least in theory.

Yet in practice, clarity on paper doesn’t always translate to fairness in the marketplace. The creative industry doesn’t merely buy images; it buys rights to images. Ownership is central, and AI-generated copies muddy the waters. Even if the person copying your style can’t claim ownership, unauthorised reproductions could still dilute your brand and undercut your livelihood.

Why Traditional Solutions Fall Short

When generative AI first disrupted the creative industry, many naturally turned to familiar defences: protesting, lobbying governments, or embedding digital watermarks (so-called "data poisoning"). Each approach, though understandable, falls short.

Protests and lobbying assume AI development can be geographically constrained. Yet, AI is borderless. Restrictive local policies simply shift innovation and profits overseas, leaving creators just as vulnerable.

Digital watermarking, meanwhile, quickly turns into a technological arms race. Every watermark designed to protect your work can—and inevitably will—be stripped away or bypassed.

These traditional responses are well-intentioned but ultimately futile. AI's progress cannot be legislated away or protested into irrelevance.

A Sustainable Path Forward

Consider this practical scenario: A design studio creates a unique visual style for a client like Slack. Traditionally, once this style guide is delivered, reproduction work moves in-house, and the original creator receives no further compensation. However, by owning and licensing a custom-trained AI model, creators can earn recurring revenue whenever their original style is reproduced—transforming AI from a threat into a powerful business tool.

Exactly.ai is pioneering this sustainable model, placing the power back in the hands of creators. Through transparent intellectual property ownership, AI no longer dilutes your creative work but instead multiplies its potential—on your terms.

Embracing Change, Empowering Creativity

OpenAI’s style transfer may feel threatening today, but the future of creative work remains firmly in our control. The solution isn’t to fight AI—it's to use it to reinforce our creative ownership.

Since your creative style can now be easily multiplied, you must explicitly monetise this multiplication. This means restructuring how you charge clients—not just for initial creative concepts, but specifically for the ongoing right to reproduce your work through AI.

Today, illustrators and designers typically deliver style guidelines or initial images without adequately monetising subsequent reproductions. This practice must end immediately. From now on, charging separately and explicitly for reproduction rights through AI is not optional—it is essential.

What Must Be Done

OpenAI’s style transfer announcement is a wake-up call. Creators must act decisively:

1. Revise your contracts to explicitly include AI reproduction rights.
2. Begin charging clients accordingly for the right to multiply and replicate your style.
3. Explore and adopt platforms such as Exactly.ai, enabling you to retain full ownership of your creative AI models and stay at the centre of your own creative economy.

We have entered an era where your creativity can—and must—be your greatest asset. At Exactly.ai, we're committed to empowering creators to thrive alongside technological advancement, not despite it.