When AI meets the creative professions, a polarized debate often arises. On one side are those who work with AI and believe that the technology can demonstrably replace certain creative functions. On the other side are people in creative professions who claim that AI will never be able to be genuinely creative. The question is not black and white. It largely depends on what kind of creativity we are talking about.
When creativity is about combining what already exists
If creativity is defined as the ability to put together existing ideas in new contexts, then one must admit that AI can be highly creative. A language model-based AI is trained on large amounts of text and ideas and is often better than a human at suggesting new combinations within given frameworks. If the task, for example, is to come up with ten alternative slogans, then AI will surpass humans in both speed and breadth. AI can suggest variants, tones and target group adaptations in an instant. Here, efficiency is its main strength.
When creativity requires breaking rules or a shift in perspective
However, the picture changes if we instead believe that creativity is about connecting two seemingly incompatible ideas, perhaps from different industries, into something new and relevant. Or challenging established patterns by doing the exact opposite of what everyone else is doing. Then a departure from the probable and the data-driven is required. AI can absolutely respond to such a challenge, but it cannot formulate it itself. It requires a human with creative ability to ask the right question.
Creativity therefore does not always lie in the answer, but in the question. It is the user’s ability to think obliquely, think the other way around or think backwards that determines how creative AI is perceived. This is the central difference between being creative and responding to creative input. AI does not yet have any driving force or ability to question its own processes or leave the patterns it has learned, other than when we as users control it.
Where AI can never fully replace humans
Some forms of creativity are strongly linked to human attributes such as emotions, intuition and physical presence. An artist might choose to combine certain colors or earlier based on a mood. An impromptu comment in a meeting can create an idea through body language, tone or context. That kind of creative expression arises from the interplay of complex signals, where AI still has major limitations. AI interprets data, not moods.
For example, an AI could suggest strategies for how to interact during a pandemic. But the most creative solutions during Covid-19 were often born out of panic, frustration, empathy or new needs, from video conferencing to local food supply. These arose from context, not calculation. Modeling what worked afterwards is one thing, but being the first to do it yourself.
AI enhances your creativity if you know how to use it
The most important argument for developing your own creativity in an AI world is that creativity makes you better at using AI. Anyone who trains themselves in creative methods knows how to ask questions that lead to unexpected answers. It is a skill that cannot be automated. You become not only an idea creator, but the director of the idea generator.
Example: using the PMI method with AI
PMI stands for Plus, Minus, Interesting and is a simple creative method for exploring an idea from different angles. Let’s take the idea of “filming all physical meetings” and ask three consecutive questions to an AI, one for each PMI dimension.
First we ask: What is the positive aspect of filming all physical meetings?
AI can answer that it creates documentation, increases transparency, facilitates follow-up and can help absent colleagues to share the content.
Then we ask: What are the negative aspects of filming all physical meetings?
Here AI can answer that it can hinder the spontaneity of participants, reduce psychological safety, create privacy problems and increase administrative work.
Finally we ask: What is interesting about the idea of filming all physical meetings?
Now AI might respond that it can change how people prepare, enable AI analysis of meeting dynamics, or create a new type of organizational culture where more order is created because the documents that exist.
The point here is that the method forces AI to give nuanced and exploratory answers. Because it is a dialogue, it also carries with it what it answered to the positively and negatively formulated question. But it is the human user who orchestrated it. It is the user’s creativity that created the framework for AI’s creativity.
Human asks the question, AI answers
AI can be creative in some contexts, but only within the limits of what we ask it to do. The greatest creativity still comes from humans, especially when it comes to breaking logic rather than following it. In the future, it is not about AI or humans, but about how creative people use AI as an amplifier. Creativity, among other things, is not less important. It becomes more accessible and, above all, even more central.
