By: Osama Siddiq: CoFounder and Executive Creative Director, LION

2025, the year we forgot humans.

Last year we got lazy. AI became an excuse to stop thinking. People produced more and decided less. Work moved fast and said nothing. It looked finished but felt empty.

AI doesn’t have taste. It doesn’t know when something feels wrong or when it feels done. AI can edit. It just wont care. It only follows direction. Most of the direction last year was weak.

The work that landed didn’t feel automated. It felt controlled. Someone had made decisions. Someone knew what to remove. Someone trusted silence. That didn’t come from tools. That came from people.

OpenAI understood this. Their ChatGPT films avoided spectacle. Shot on 35mm. Real faces. Real pacing. No need to prove anything. Apple did the same. Technology stayed quiet. The idea stayed in charge.

This was never human versus AI. That framing is lazy. AI without humans is noise. Humans without tools are slow. The problem starts when no one is steering.

2026 will reward judgment. Taste. Restraint. People who know when to push and when to stop. AI will still be everywhere. The difference will be who’s actually in control.

Humans decide and AI accelerates. So this year, we bring back the Human and make magic with AI.