AI Is Not Killing Creativity, It Is Freeing It - Michael DiBugnara, Likey Co.

What we talked about.

Michael DiBugnara, co-founder and chief creative officer of Likey Co, joins Sunny Ray to argue that artificial intelligence is not killing creativity, it is freeing it. DiBugnara traces his path from selling printing and promotional products to running an experiential agency built with his wife in 2018, one that pairs live brand experiences with cultural influence across fashion, tech, and CPG. He explains how AI now compresses weeks of rendering and iteration into seconds, letting him pitch clients faster and explore far more creative directions before committing budget. Rather than replacing ideas, he says AI expands and organizes them, freeing creatives from repetitive production work so more energy goes toward taste, execution, and human connection. The conversation covers how COVID forced Likey to pivot into digital and influencer campaigns, why in person experience still matters in a screen saturated world, and recent projects including a Fashion Week activation, nationwide food sampling, and an art gallery built for Kind Bar founder Daniel Lubetzky. DiBugnara insists the real value creatives offer going forward is not images or copy, which AI can generate instantly, but original ideas, aesthetic judgment, and the ability to execute within real budgets and human relationships.

An experiential agency founder argues AI does not replace creative ideas, it frees creatives from repetitive work to focus on taste and execution.

The questions, and the answers.

What kind of problem is Likey solving, and what does the company actually do?

Likey is an experiential agency I co-founded in 2018. Our point of differentiation is pairing experience with what we call influence, whether that is creators, creatives, or whatever spark comes from culture into experiential work. We work across fashion, tech, and CPG, creating experiences that help brands break through the noise and connect with their target customer base.

What did the production side of your career teach you that pure creative never would have?

I started my career selling printing, one of the most analog, ancient industries out there. Even selling postcards and brochures before creative services taught me how people react to aesthetics and how things get built. That is why I think we are in one of the most exciting times possible, because AI has catapulted everything so fast. My work has changed more in the last two years than in the previous twenty.

Why experiential, when the whole industry spent a decade moving everything to a screen?

People want to experience things in person, to touch and feel them. When I mentor young people I tell them if you stay involved in something people can experience in real life, you will have a place in this world, especially in creativity. When COVID hit, my business disappeared overnight, so we pivoted to digital and influencer campaigns and learned that in-person experiences can actually be enhanced by that digital layer.

Most creatives say AI is ruining the work. You say the opposite. When did you land there?

My biggest frustration used to be translating ideas to clients. Before AI I would spend weeks paying rendering artists to bring visuals to life. Now I can type what a client wants, their brand guidelines, colors, music, and generate a rendering in moments, then tweak it instantly. I think the people saying AI will ruin creativity are just artists who are insecure about being replaced, like every artist throughout history.

What part of your craft do you now refuse to let a machine anywhere near?

Honestly, my creativity has been getting stolen by clients my whole career anyway, so that fear mostly erased for me. It is less about protecting ideas and more about your confidence to execute, produce, and put your own spin on something. If you live in fear that AI will steal your idea and do it better, that is human insecurity, but AI will never replace that human touch in execution.

If machines make most of the images and copy, what is the last thing people will still pay a human for?

Ideas. Now when a client pitches me, I am not just competing with other agencies, I am competing with someone on their own team typing a brief into a chat tool. It is so simple to log on and generate ideas today. What matters is establishing that you bring more through your perspective, aesthetic, taste, and your ability to actually execute within a real budget, which AI alone cannot solve.

How did Likey start, and what did you get right about setting it up?

Likey is a partnership with my wife, who spent her career in experiential marketing, from sampling at bars to working at Merrill Lynch. I started selling printing, then promotional products like swag and branded merchandise, and I met her through that world. I have a psychology degree and have always been curious what makes people tick, which is part of why AI excites me now.

Can you walk through a recent project where AI played a real role?

We built a gallery for Daniel Lubetzky, founder of Kind Bar, launching his podcast Break or Build. He wanted to showcase failure moments from famous friends. One idea was recreating the broken tomato paste jars from his first failed product. Instead of paying a high level artist to prove the concept, AI generated images of the installation in our actual space, the client loved it, and it became a big hit at the opening.