How is the AI community doing right now?
I ran a few polls to get some insights into where we all are in our journey's. Let's take a look at the results!
Time with AI Art
AI art has not been around long: the original Dall-E was announced in the beginning of 2021 -- just over 3 years ago!
We have all come into the AI art scene at different points since then.
I ran a poll with the question "How long have you been into AI art?" An amazing 101 of you participated. Let's take a look at the results:
A remarkable 10.9% have been here since the beginning or practically so. Congrats to our veterans for their dedication!
The majority of us (42.6%) have been here between a year and two years, while a large number (36.6%) have been here between 4 and 12 months.
9.9% are new to the community, having been here less than 3 months. Welcome to all of you and I hope you're having a blast so far!
Here's some comments from the poll:
"I've been called an old man more than once." ~ John Stark (@StarkMakesArt)
"Midjourney has been my passion since 9/2022. I started posting my prompts and creations here and it's been a daily thing ever since! What a great community we have!" ~ Time Traveler (@timetravelr2025)
"I started around Mid-February. I did use it occasionally in Adobe before that to fix small things in some of my design classes. But it was rare." ~ Poppy's Pixels (@popped_pixels)
AI Enthusiasm
I was afraid the honeymoon phase of AI art might be over. We do have discussions about burnout in the community and occasionally see people disappear or take long breaks.
I'm glad to say that despite these set backs, our enthusiasm for AI art is very healthy!
59 of you answered my poll asking "How excited are you about AI and AI art compared to when you started?" Here are the results:
A true majority of 50.8% of you are more enthusiastic now than when you first started. While 32.3% are about the same.
Only 16.9% reported that they were less enthusiastic.
This is great news! With the fast growth of this field, I hope this trend is sustained for some time to come.
Here are some interesting comments from the poll:
"I'm at a year now too, it's not that I'm not still excited about stuff, but a lot of the newness has worn off too. Looks like motion & animation is the latest hype right now but I don't have as much interest in making my own cinema" ~ Anelyn (@AnetteElbeck)
"I've only been creating since October, but even I have seen the massive improvement AI art has come along especially with the platforms available and it's not only a little scary, but incredibly exciting." ~ LolaLadel (@lolaladel82)
"AIArt's improvements are incredible! I'm as hyped as ever to finally create anime art." ~ Jagroop Natt (@JagroopNatt07)
Resources
One of the frequent complaints I have seen is the lack of time, energy, or money to try all the amazing new tools that seem to be coming out every day.
How much of a problem is each of these resources for the community?
56 of you responded to my poll asking "What limits your creativity in AI art the most?"
Time was the most answered with 42.9% and money was not far behind at 35.7%. Only 8.9% answered energy with 12.5% responding with Other.
We all have lives outside of AI art so time's lead does not surprise me at all. With the world dealing with inflation and software constantly requiring subscriptions, money is a no-brainer too.
I was, however, surprised and glad at how few answered energy. I take this to mean, like the enthusiasm poll, that as a community we are still passionate for AI art.
Here are some comments from the poll:
"Always time....Sometimes I have a cool idea that I end up not pursuing simply because I know the prompt will take too long to make." ~ Marie C. McShea (@McSheaWrites)
"Time 100 % , so many tools to try and lack of time to push the possibilities" ~ LudovicCreator (@LudovicCreator)
"The tokens/ limited hours are definitely the bottle neck for me 😤" ~ AI Monsters (@AIMonster_AIM)
Conclusion
I was very pleased at the results of these polls, and I hope you found the interesting as well.
Thank you for everyone who participated in the polls! I plan on doing more in the future, so please keep an eye out.