How AI Influences Human Creativity

AI can not just augment, but increase human creativity. Two recent extensive empirical studies on Humans + AI creativity yield a number of important lessons and insights. 🧭 Iteration doesn’t self-improve Across 10 rounds, human–GenAI pairs didn’t become more creative just by repeating the cycle. “More rounds” isn’t a strategy by itself. Creativity improved only when people were explicitly pushed into co-development behaviours (critique + refinement) rather than defaulting to fresh generation each time. 🛠️ Co-development is the real engine The strongest gains came from treating AI as a partner for sharpening an idea - stress-testing, reframing, combining, and tightening - not generating endless options. If you want creativity to rise over time, design the workflow so refinement is unavoidable. 🔁 Galleries beat blank prompts In a study of over 800 people, simply exposing them to “galleries of examples” increased engagement and led to better-quality outcomes. The intervention wasn’t “smarter prompting,” it was changing the interaction pattern so people could browse, compare, and build. 👀 Attention is impact, not just edits Simply viewing AI suggestions can influence the creative process even before any copying or modification happens. Action-based metrics alone undercount value. Evaluation should include attention measures, especially time spent reviewing suggestion galleries, to capture the cognitive engagement that’s driving outcomes. 🧩 Different people need different AI “shapes” The value of one generation strategy (e.g., AI generated vs random suggestions) varies based on the designer’s approach, and that approach can change mid-process. Static “one-size AI assistance” will underperform compared to systems that adapt to the user’s current mode. 🕰️ Don’t promise time savings Galleries increased engagement and led to longer sessions, and those longer sessions produced better outcomes. The win is quality, not speed. Treat these tools as creativity amplifiers, not efficiency hacks. Here is a repeatable Humans + AI creativity process directly derived from the research that you can implement: 1️⃣ Scan a shared gallery of AI suggestions/examples before prompting from scratch. 2️⃣ Select and lock 1–2 candidate ideas to refine instead of generating more. 3️⃣ Run 2–3 co-development passes: critique → strengthen → rewrite the same idea. 4️⃣ Re-open the gallery to compare, recombine, and upgrade the refined version. 5️⃣ Track time spent viewing suggestions and the ratio of refining to generating. 6️⃣ Repeat this cadence regularly and optimize for quality over speed.

🤔 Does AI Make Us More Creative or More Average? Most university students in the U.S. and the U.K. use AI in their studies. As AI becomes increasingly intelligent and accessible, concerns have emerged around its impact on independent thinking and creativity. Writing is one area that clearly illustrates this concern. While students report that AI tools are helpful for tutoring or brainstorming, overreliance on AI in writing may hinder their ability to think independently and reduce their creative thinking. A study published in July 2024 and cited highly since then examined this issue. It examined whether GPT-4 can enhance or hinder creativity in the context of creative writing. Over 150 participants in the UK took part and were divided into three groups: one group wrote without any AI assistance, another received a single round of helpful ideas from GPT, and a third received up to five rounds of GPT-generated suggestions throughout their short story writing process. An independent panel of human evaluators assessed the final stories for several criteria including creativity, humor, and overall quality. 💡 Researchers found that the stories written with GPT ideas were rated as more creative, funnier, and better written, but importantly only for those participants who had lower scores on a creativity (divergent thinking) test administered beforehand. 💡 In contrast, participants who were already highly creative did not show an increase in creativity when they used GPT, perhaps due to a ceiling effect. While they still opted to use AI support when available, their story quality did not significantly improve. This suggests that GPT may serve as a helpful support for creative writing, especially for those with less experience or lower baseline creativity. 😲 However, there was a critical trade-off. Stories written with AI assistance tended to be more similar to one another. This suggests a potential homogenizing effect by making our ideas and outputs more alike. These findings offer valuable insights into how AI affects human cognition, especially creativity. 👍 On one hand, AI can empower those who are less confident or less experienced in a given domain to produce higher-quality work. 👎 On the other hand, it may reduce opportunities for truly original ideas to stand out—and over time, may contribute to a convergence of thought that makes our work more average. 🤔 One important caution that I suggest for interpretation: in this study, participants were only allowed limited use of GPT (between one and five rounds of helpful suggestions). This form of controlled AI use may represent an optimal balance between human thought and machine support. 🙁 In real-world settings, however, students can prompt AI to generate entire essays in a matter of seconds. This convenience drastically increases the risk of diminishing independent thinking and creativity in students during the critical developmental period.

How AI Is Reshaping Creativity — Under the Hood of the New Muse So what exactly is happening when AI creates? And how should we think about it—as art, imitation, collaboration, or something else entirely? This is a quiet meditation on what AI is really doing under the hood—and what it means for human creativity. 1. AI doesn’t invent. It recombines. AI doesn’t start from experience or intention. It starts from patterns. It is trained on vast cultural corpora—books, images, music—and learns how elements tend to go together. When prompted, it draws from that statistical reservoir, remixing what it has seen. This is what Margaret Boden would call combinatorial creativity. It’s compelling, often beautiful, but rarely surprising in the way human originality can be. It’s collage without autobiography. 2. There’s no muse—only math. AI doesn’t have a self, a memory of heartbreak, a childhood, or a vision for the future. It generates not through insight or impulse, but probability. A line of code stands where intention might otherwise live. That doesn’t mean what it produces is meaningless. But it does mean that the meaning doesn’t originate within the system. It’s projected onto the output—by us. 3. Originality is not novelty. Originality isn’t just creating something new. It’s creating something that resists what came before—something that breaks form to say something true. AI, for now, doesn’t break forms. It operates within them. It’s great at style imitation and genre pastiche. But what it generates—while novel in arrangement—is often bound by precedent. It’s not transformational creativity. Not yet. That’s still a profoundly human act—born of risk, intuition, and vision. 4. Human-AI collaboration reframes authorship. We are seeing something quietly revolutionary: humans and machines co-creating. Writers using AI to shape paragraphs. Painters to prompt compositions. It’s no longer about "AI vs. Artist" but about new roles in creativity. It's a shift in authorship, where the curator or the orchestrator becomes just as important as the maker. Authenticity, in this hybrid space, becomes relational rather than singular. 5. Meaning still belongs to people. Walter Benjamin warned that mechanical reproduction erodes the aura of the original. With AI, that tension returns—only this time the artist may not be visible at all. But meaning never lived in the object alone. It lives in the space between—between the work and the one encountering it. Meaning is not algorithmic. It’s a resonance. Readers and viewers often feel the absence of human touch. But sometimes, they don’t. And that ambivalence is where culture is being rewritten. TL;DR: AI is not a muse. It’s a mirror. It reflects our patterns, our history, our aesthetics—sometimes so well that we mistake it for invention. But authenticity, originality, and meaning are still deeply human currencies. AI shows us what we’ve made. It’s up to us to decide what we want to make next.

We’re watching AI destroy creative thinking in real time. Thousands of action figure images flooded social media with generative AI slop last week, all spawned by people mindlessly repeating the same prompt. The week before, it was the Studio Ghibli prompt, and next week, it’ll be another example of generative AI lemmings following the crowd off a cognitive cliff. Creative, original thought has become a rare, high-value capability. Discovery requires experimentation, so when people condition themselves to follow trends, they turn off the most valuable parts of their minds. The ability to direct and manage experimentation means never waiting to be told what to do. We can figure it out ourselves. AI tools make following trends and creating copies cheap and easy. That’s true for more than just social media posts. Most marketplaces, from coding to advertising, are seeing a rise in generative AI slop. In that competitive environment, who is more valuable, an expert at jumping on the latest trend or the person who can start them? There’s value in both, but people outsourcing their creativity to AI has led to a glut of trend followers and a shortage of trend makers. Businesses must innovate to survive, so they need people who see trends coming, not those who wait to be told what’s next. The next wave of upskilling and high-value training develops cognitive capabilities like creativity.

The AI art debate is missing the real story. Everyone focuses on the technology. Few talk about the humans behind it. Here are 5 uncomfortable truths: 1) AI doesn't create → it recombines Just like the marionette that traces over a photo reference, AI models remix existing works. The creativity lies in human direction and curation. 2) Attribution is broken When Gemini 2.5 Flash generates art from millions of training images, whose style is it really? The original artists deserve recognition and compensation. 3) Human skill still matters Getting quality output from AI requires expertise. Prompt engineering, style direction, and post-processing all need human intelligence. 4) The plagiarism line is blurry Traditional artists have always drawn inspiration from others. But AI operates at unprecedented scale and speed. We need new frameworks for what's acceptable. 5) The technology is democratizing creativity Love it or hate it, tools like Gemini 2.5 Flash are putting advanced creative capabilities in everyone's hands. Over one million users joined overnight. The real question isn't whether AI will replace human creativity. It's how we ensure human creativity remains valued and protected as these tools evolve. We need industry standards. Legal frameworks. Ethical guidelines. And we need them now, before the genie gets too far out of the bottle. How should we balance innovation with protecting creators' rights? ♻️ Share this to spark important conversations 💚 Follow me if you care about the future of creativity VC: @galeria_marionet IG / TT #techforgood #ai #gai #provenance #proofofhumanhood

If your AI brainstorming starts with an AI prompt  such as “give me ideas about for X,” you’re limiting your imagination.  I learned this while working through IDEO U’s Human-Centered Design and AI certificate program, which keeps reminding me that AI only supports creativity when humans stay actively involved. To test this, I ran a small experiment tied to my design challenge: how can nonprofit professionals use AI to augment their thinking so their work becomes more strategic, creative, and human-centered? Here’s what happened. When I began with human-only ideation (my own brain or a brainstorming session with other humans), the ideas were grounded in mission, constraints, and real community needs. When I switched to AI with a clear creative direction to generate ideas, I asked for absurdity.  AI delivered: costume-based learning scenes, dramatic falling sequences, Play-Doh brains, even a human–AI tango. These weren’t solutions or a waste of time. They were creative provocations that loosened up the tight mental space we often operate within. The best ideas emerged only after I cycled through several layers of human grounding, AI variation, and human synthesis. It felt like a club sandwich of thinking modes. Humans brought mission and ethics. AI widened the possibility space. Humans shaped meaning. The infographic (created in Nano Banana) shows the practices that made this work: 💡Begin with human insight. 💡Give AI a clear creative direction. 💡Separate idea expansion from idea selection. 💡Use reflective checkpoints. 💡Treat AI as a partner, not a replacement. This experiment makes me think that the real value of AI in nonprofit brainstorming is less about efficiency and more about expanding imagination. When humans guide the process, AI becomes a thought-partner for more human-centered creativity. What would open up in your work if your organization treated AI as a creative partner instead of a shortcut?

So many people are scared AI will take over all creative work. My gut tells me that'll never happen. Here's why... AI is undeniably powerful. It's transforming industries and automating entire workflows. Every day it’s pushing the boundaries of “whoa, that’s already possible?” But when it comes to creativity — AI still falls short. Sure, AI can generate stunning visuals, write compelling copy, and even compose music that tugs at our heartstrings. But it lacks the one thing that makes human creativity truly special: The spark of originality that comes from lived experience. Think about it. Every time new tech emerges, our first thought is “will this replace me?” But what actually happens? It elevates us. It raises the bar for what we can create and achieve. When photography arrived, people thought it would kill painting. Instead, it pushed artists to explore new styles and techniques that captured the essence of human experience in ways a camera never could. When digital music tools became mainstream, people feared it would replace "real" artistry. But it democratized music creation and allowed for an explosion of new genres and sounds that we couldn't have imagined before. The same is true for AI and creativity. Yes, AI can generate an infinite stream of content. But it's content based on patterns. It can't tap into: → human experience → nuance of emotion → quirks of personality As creators, our job isn't to churn out more content than an AI ever could. It's to tell stories that connect us. To express ideas that challenge us. To reflect the world in all its messy, complicated, beautiful humanity. And that's something no machine can ever replace. What do you think? Will AI eventually replace creatives?

Yesterday, voices from the creative community gathered at the Hiredly office to a raw, honest conversation about how AI is changing their world. Some were excited. Others, not so much. It was an amazing debate which everyone had in a mature way, but it was clear the views were diverse. For me, the conversation also revealed a deeper truth. The world is evolving, and creative people still matter more than ever. I still have thoughts and questions: 1. Many agreed that AI can generate content, but it’s the human behind the work that gives it soul. The process, the intention, the imperfection. But what would make it “human-made” and therefore art? That debated. 2. Entry-level work is being automated. And companies are using AI tools to save costs. If we lose the pipeline of young creatives, who becomes the next great artist or storyteller? 3. There’s a personal growth that comes from the act of creating. AI can help us move faster, but it can’t replace the transformation that happens when we make something ourselves. 4. We can’t ignore AI. And we can choose how to use it. For creatives, that might mean embracing it as a tool to enhance and not replace their voice. 5. From digital art to Google search, every generation of creatives has faced disruption. AI feels like the next chapter. And every new generation of creatives have always adapted. But will it be the same with Generative AI? Hiredly is a tech company, but we’ve always valued creative talent that brings our platform to life. That’s why we find ourselves in a unique position… we believe in the potential of AI, and we believe in the power of human creativity. As AI evolves, so will we. Staying grounded in technology, but always standing with the people who use it to create.

Can AI make us more creative? At an individual level, the answer may well be yes. A study found that access to genAI ideas made short stories appear more creative, better written and more enjoyable, especially among less creative writers. But there is a catch: those AI-assisted stories were also more similar to each other. That, to me, is the real paradox: AI may help each of us produce more polished work, while making the collective creative field narrower, more predictable, and less surprising. The question, then, is not really whether AI can be creative. It is what happens to 𝘰𝘶𝘳 creativity when AI becomes the default co-writer, co-composer and co-thinker. This week’s 𝗠𝗼𝗱𝗲𝗹𝘀 & 𝗠𝗼𝗿𝗮𝗹𝘀 is about AI, creativity, cognitive debt, “statistical silence”, Asimov, and the risk that we slowly stop trusting our own ability to begin from a blank page. Comments and recommendations are welcome, as always!

"AI is destroying creativity." Then it was never there to begin with. Truly creative people NEED to create. They need to make things. They have ideas that are burning inside to get out. AI doesn't suppress that. If anything, AI enables that. When I look at my work and play over the last 2 years, AI has saved me no time. My workday is longer, not shorter. But it's far more joyful. Individual tasks are much shorter now, but that lets me do more, create more, be more. I have 10x the number of ideas I used to, because AI enables me to create at faster speeds AND better quality. I've created and published more software in 2025 than I did in the 10 years prior combined. Some of it is even public, like my Chrome extensions. And I haven't ceded any of the things I love. I still write my newsletter, entirely me. All these LinkedIn posts, still me, because I love the act of writing like this. At no point have I felt compelled to give up something I love. No one is telling me to hand off this to AI. I have taken great joy in giving up things I hate. At Trust Insights, we have things like GPTs to handle writing up expense reports. We have every major AI coding tool for debugging software plus an array of agents to hunt down bugs, which I hate doing. We have prompts, agents, and apps for process documentation, also something I don't love. (you can read about my process in today's Trust Insights newsletter, link in the comments) Creative people will always want to create. That's their nature, and they take joy in doing so. AI might help them create faster and better, but for sure it will help them clear away the work that infringes on their creative time. #AI #GenerativeAI #GenAI #ChatGPT #ArtificialIntelligence #LargeLanguageModels #MachineLearning #IntelligenceRevolution