Generative AI makes ideas easier to generate - and easier to ignore.
Sure ChatGPT or Claude can produce a perfectly serviceable list of ideas before you have finished making a cup of tea.
But are they any good?
The competitive advantage of HI (Human Intelligence) is knowing which idea has potential, how to make it distinctive and whether it deserves to exist.
Why it matters
The World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2025 found that creative thinking is among the human skills expected to keep rising in importance through 2030.
That sits alongside rapid growth in demand for AI, big data and technological literacy.
The useful combination is not human creativity or better technology.
It's knowing what the technology can do, what it cannot judge and where your own curiosity, experience and taste need to enter the process.
What creative thinking actually looks like
It's not waiting for inspiration to arrive wearing a fabulous outfit.
It IS noticing patterns, making unexpected connections, reframing a tired problem and asking a better question.
It also requires enough space to think beyond the first acceptable answer.
That matters because AI systems are very good at producing plausible versions of what already exists.
If everybody starts with the same prompt and accepts the first response, the result is more content—and less that anybody remembers.
Five ways to make more room for it
Explore
Change the input. Visit somewhere unfamiliar, read outside your industry or speak to somebody who sees the problem differently.
Follow your curiosity
Don't dismiss every interesting detour because it cannot be added to this week’s task list.
Capture the unfinished thought
Ideas rarely arrive fully dressed. Keep the strange sentence, awkward sketch or voice note long enough to discover what it might become.
Ask the unreasonable question
What would you try if the obvious constraint disappeared? What would make this more useful, more human or considerably less boring?
Take a proper break
Stanford researchers found that walking increased creative output in their experiments. Sometimes the next useful move is away from the desk.
What to do next
Choose one problem you have been trying to solve with more effort.
Give yourself 20 minutes in which you are not allowed to produce the sensible answer.
Write down ten alternatives. Make one deliberately ridiculous. Combine two that should not belong together.
Then use your judgement.
Creative thinking is becoming more valuable because producing an answer is getting easier. Knowing which answer is worth pursuing is where the work begins.
Sources
