I'm an ex editorial illustrator and midjourney can do the whole job often enough. With about 20% of ideas I try out I've been able to get submission ready work.

I'm an ex editorial illustrator and midjourney can do the whole job often enough. With about 20% of ideas I try out I've been able to get submission ready work. Maybe another 30% can be cleaned up without too much hassle in Photoshop. I don't expect these odds to get worse in the future. A photographer friend of mine had a gig to do some festive food arrangements. He needed a full day and a half, a studio, $30k in gear and years of professional experience. All I needed was 5 minutes and some clever prompt poetry. I did not have the heart to show him why he might have a hard time getting a similar gig next year. As Clayton Christensen's theory of disruption proposes: the disruptive product does not need to be better. It needs to be good enough and far cheaper. So cheap now that there is zero marginal cost for bespoke art.