The Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) recently hosted its third annual AI Summit across its Savannah and Atlanta locations, convening industry leaders, educators, and students to examine how artificial intelligence is reshaping creative work and how education must respond. This
year’s summit focused on how AI is being integrated into real creative workflows, the guardrails and trust required for responsible use, and the human judgment, adaptability, and resilience students need to lead in an AI-augmented future.

The summit brought together leaders from NVIDIA, Google, Adobe, Deloitte Digital, Canva, Amazon, Netflix, The Coca-Cola Company, and other organizations working at the forefront of AI, design, and media. "The SCAD AI Summit is home to pivotal conversations about the impact of machine intelligence across design, the arts, and higher education,” said Dan Bartlett, Dean of the School of Animation and Motion at SCAD. "This event has become a premier hub for global leaders to examine the practical applications of AI and the essential steps to leverage—and ultimately amplify—its positive influence."

Students were central to the event. During a hands-on AI Jam powered by NVIDIA, teams prototyped real applications of generative tools in a 48-hour studio environment. The winning team, REM (Remember Every Moment), developed a pipeline that transforms photos and video into immersive virtual reality experiences. Projects ranged from a digital coral reef that grows and changes like a real ecosystem to AI tools that turn sketches into fully realized 3D environments, automated creation of game-ready towns and cities, realistic earthquake simulations, and robotic rescue scenarios for dangerous environments.

“The recent SCAD AI Summit has been a powerful demonstration of how quickly this field is moving,” said Dan Schneider, NVIDIA Professional Visualization Solution Specialist. “I was impressed by the level of companies SCAD brought together and how this year’s summit clearly moved from ideas to action, especially with the launch of their Applied AI Bachelor of Design program. The conversations with leaders from Google, Coca-Cola, Disney Imagineers, and others showed just how quickly the AI landscape in media and entertainment is evolving. The NVIDIA-sponsored AI JAM Hackathon was a standout moment—18 student teams using OpenUSD and cutting-edge tools to tackle real-world problems in just 48 hours, all centered on the theme of transforming workflows for the future with OpenUSD and AI. Seeing students fuse human creativity with advanced AI capabilities
reinforced for me how crucial education is in preparing the next generation of AI literate professionals.”

In advance of the summit, SCADask — the university’s applied research studio at the intersection of commerce, creativity, and culture — conducted an extensive design-industry focused survey and complementary secondary research to understand how AI is being adopted in real creative workflows. Across methods, the findings aligned: AI is already embedded in practice, efficiency gains are real, and the skills that matter most are increasingly human.

Highlights from the survey:
● When survey respondents were asked what human skills gain value as AI adoption
increases, the answers included: creative direction, taste and critique, storytelling,
and strategy and problem framing.
● 78% of respondents report clear AI-driven efficiencies (biggest gains in research and
synthesis, content creation, and early ideation)
● 27% of creative output already involves AI tools
● 63% of respondents define AI success to be time saved
● 9% of respondents define AI success to be output quality

In the coming months, SCADask will publish the 2026 AI Insights Report, expanding on the research and conversations that emerged from this year’s summit and highlighting how AI influences creative practice and design education. 

To continue to prepare students for this shift, SCAD has expanded programs like its Applied AI degree and minor within The De Sole School of Business Innovation, which emphasize creative direction, human–AI collaboration, ethics, and the judgment required to lead emerging technologies.

Throughout the summit, one idea surfaced repeatedly: the future of creative work will be defined by the discernment the university teaches. By centering adaptability, responsibility, judgment, critical thinking, and more, SCAD prepares students to meet a changing industry with intention and to help define its future.

To learn more about the SCAD AI Summit 2026, visit here.
SCAD: The University for Creative Careers
SCAD is a private, nonprofit, accredited university, offering 100 graduate and
undergraduate degree programs across locations in Atlanta and Savannah, Georgia; Lacoste, France; and online via SCADnow. SCAD enrolls approximately 18,500 undergraduate and graduate students from more than 100 countries. The future-minded

SCAD curriculum engages professional-level technology and myriad advanced learning resources, affording students opportunities for internships, professional certifications, and real-world assignments with corporate partners through SCADpro, the university’s renowned research lab and prototype generator. 

SCAD has earned top rankings for degree programs in interior design, architecture, film, fashion, digital media, and more. Career success is woven into every fiber of the university, resulting in a superior alumni employment rate. A 2025 study found that 99% of recent SCAD graduates were employed, pursuing further education, or both within 12
months of graduation. SCAD provides students and alumni with ongoing career support through personal coaching, alumni programs, a professional presentation studio, and more. Visit scad.edu.