Singularity UAE’s Zubin Mistry on Why AI Still Needs Human Creativity

United Arab Emirates, May 2026 | Over the past several years, Artificial Intelligence has become one of the most polarising topics within the global creative industry, fuelling widespread debate around whether advanced technology poses a genuine threat to human creativity and the security of traditional production roles.

Drawing from real-world production experience, Zubin Mistry, Founder of Singularity UAE, shares his perspective on AI and its growing influence within the industry, exploring how technology should be used not as a replacement for people but as a tool to enhance human creativity, accelerate innovation and redefine modern production workflows.

Having launched in 2024, following Zubin’s prosperous career working alongside global production powerhouses such as RSA Films, Singularity was built as a modern production company designed to evolve alongside the industry itself, blending traditional filmmaking, photography, CGI, VFX and emerging technologies into a more adaptive creative model.

Today, the company has become known not only for its cinematic output across the MENA region and its association with leading global brands such as Maybelline, Emirates Airlines, and Honda amongst others, but also for its forward-thinking approach to production and innovation.

While the conversation around AI has become increasingly divided between those embracing it as the future and those viewing it as a threat to the integrity of the industry itself, Zubin believes that much of the fear surrounding AI simply stems from a misunderstanding of what the technology is actually meant to do.

"People saying AI can replace creative thinking completely are misunderstanding what creativity actually is," he explains. "AI needs guidance. It needs direction. It needs taste and a human perspective. The machine is only as good as the person behind it."

At Singularity UAE, AI is used as an enhancement tool, one that enables creatives to work faster, think bigger and unlock more efficient production possibilities without sacrificing quality or storytelling.

The recent conversations around the topic of AI are not new to Zubin. "There was a huge concern years ago that CGI would replace actors ," he says. "Did it? No. It enhanced what humans were already capable of doing. You still needed the actor, you still needed the cinematographer, and you still needed the creative vision. CGI simply elevated the final result, and AI is exactly the same."

The growth of AI in production can be seen within Singularity's long-standing partnership with Honda MENA.

Beginning as a freelancer directing commissions for the Honda HR-V, and now representing Honda as their trusted creative and production partner for vehicle launches across the MENA region, Singularity's use of AI began as relatively experimental. "At the beginning, it was quite basic," says Zubin. "We were using AI primarily to regenerate backgrounds. We'd still photograph the vehicles properly and retouch them, but proceed to composite them back into newly generated environments."

The process allowed Honda distributors to access a far wider variety of campaign imagery without the need for entirely new productions. Instead of reshooting cars across multiple locations, Singularity could intelligently create new settings while preserving the integrity of the original photography.

By 2026, the technology had developed rapidly enough for AI to replicate vehicles with extraordinary precision, significantly reducing the time required for complex compositing workflows. "What once took weeks can now take days. But the important thing people misunderstand is that this still requires human direction, human thinking and human creativity."

This is where Zubin believes much of the wider conversation around AI goes wrong. He compares AI to something Albert Einstein once famously referenced as ‘The Telephone Book’.

Einstein argued that there was little value in memorising information that could easily be accessed elsewhere. Rather than storing every fact in his own mind, he believed his energy was better spent developing deeper understanding and more meaningful ideas.

For Zubin, AI functions in much the same way. "AI and especially agentic AI is our telephone book," he says. "It is there to support creativity, enhance efficiency and allow us to focus more energy on the thinking behind the work. AI and agentic AI can never replace human creativity."

It's an analogy that perfectly reflects Singularity's wider approach to technology. The company does not position AI as a shortcut, nor does it subscribe to the growing narrative that production can suddenly be reduced to a two-hour process operated entirely by prompts.

The distinction between AI and human creativity has become increasingly important as AI-generated content floods the internet. Industry experts continue warning that over-reliance on AI risks reducing originality, emotional nuance and artistic integrity if human involvement disappears from the process.

At Singularity, the goal is not to remove people from production; it's to empower them. The company's use of applied and agentic AI is rooted in acceleration rather than automation. Tasks that once consumed weeks of repetitive post-production can now be executed faster, allowing creatives to spend more time refining concepts, elevating storytelling and developing ideas.

In many ways, the approach mirrors the industry's earlier evolution through CGI and VFX.

When Ridley Scott, James Cameron and other visionary filmmakers began pushing the boundaries of visual effects decades ago, the technology did not eliminate craftsmanship. It instead expanded the scale of what filmmakers could achieve.The same mindset now drives Singularity's approach to AI.

Under Zubin's leadership, the company has built a production model where traditional filmmaking, CGI, VFX and AI coexist together, not in competition but in collaboration, positioning Singularity at the forefront of a rapidly evolving regional production landscape.

As brands increasingly demand more content, faster turnarounds and greater modularity across campaigns, the traditional production model is being challenged like never before. AI is helping reshape those timelines, allowing companies like Singularity to deliver significantly more creative output without sacrificing visual quality or storytelling.

But for Zubin, the human element will always remain the foundation.

In an industry currently consumed by debate over whether AI will replace creatives, Zubin sees a far more optimistic future. One where technology does not diminish creativity but gives it greater room to evolve; where production becomes faster, more efficient and more adaptive, while still remaining grounded in human thinking; and one where the real power of AI lies not in replacing the artist but in giving them more freedom to create.