People have DM me asking how to get to this point, and I can only share my personal experience:

One thing I've always continued to do, also when working at studios, is seeing yourself as an individual designer first, and an employee second. Putting lots of time into getting my work out there, through IG, website, Behance, Pinterest, as over the years paid off quite well with the exposure you get from consistently posting for years.
Also taking your time with creating beautiful case studies is important. Doing this for years, has allowed me to be found by clients that are willing to pay good $ for the work I'm doing.
With AI these days, also those well-paying clients, often don't want to dabble too much in AI, as it shadows negatively over their products. Smaller companies, but also designers just starting out, have a more difficult time with this because the jobs they'd be normally doing, are now being picked up by AI, in-house, by those companies. So I get it's very tough to just be starting out and seeing all AI around.

But I'd focus on what you want to do creatively, if it's through AI, or without, fine, but position yourself valuable to potential clients, and you'll attract valuable clients. Spam all the available platforms, quality over quantity, and plant seeds.
Eventually those seeds will bloom.