If your LinkedIn feed looks anything like mine, not a day goes by when you see posts of marketers and creatives with their hair on fire over two simple letters — AI. It used to be we feared we would all be replaced by robots. Now we think that ChatGPT is coming for our jobs, and the stigma against AI is palpable. But are AI and creativity really enemies?
We All Learn by Example
Think back to when you started creating. Without really knowing it, I spent countless hours early in my career training my creative instincts by absorbing others’ work I loved. My early designs were derivative at best. My first radio scripts? Practically pastiche. My videos back in college production class? You could name my influences immediately.
Sound familiar? That’s because learning this way is human nature.
AI models learn mostly the same way. They study patterns and recognize what works. When an AI suggests a headline or generates an image, I don’t think it’s “stealing” any more than I was when my early creative portfolio echoed my influences growing up. I was raised on a pretty weird, twisted sense of humor, and you could see it in my own early work. AI is synthesizing what it’s learned, just like we do.
The Art of the Prompt
“Just use AI to create it” has become the new “make it pop” or “make it go viral” – a phrase that makes creative pros internally groan.
Crafting effective AI prompts is its own art form. It demands deep creative knowledge, strategic thinking, and the ability to translate abstract concepts into clear instructions. After years refining my creative process, I now invest significant time developing my prompting technique.
The gap between mediocre and exceptional AI-augmented creative work comes down to the human expertise behind the prompt. I’ve spent lots of time practicing and fine-tuning instructions to get exactly the right tone I want in a piece of copy or the precise visual style for a concept. We’re not eliminating creativity—we’re redirecting it toward higher-level thinking.
Real Collaboration Requires Human Touch
Nothing AI-generated gets near my “publish” button without substantial human refinement. The raw output is just the starting point—a creative springboard that needs my professional judgment to transform into something valuable.
What makes this truly powerful is the back-and-forth dialogue. Throughout my career, I’ve collaborated with other creators and marketing pros I respect. My best work emerges from this creative friction where ideas get challenged and refined.
Working with AI follows a similar pattern. I rarely ever accept the first output. Instead, I engage in a constructive dialog that often involves many re-prompts — challenging initial suggestions, throwing out new ideas, and guiding toward more nuanced directions. This creates a synergy that produces results neither of us would have ever reached alone.
The human element brings the crucial brand voice adjustments, cultural awareness, and emotional intelligence that AI can’t replicate. I’m not using AI as a replacement but as a partner that handles the foundational work while I focus on elevating the final product. I think of it as a writer’s room of sorts, or a creative director (me) having a brainstorm session with a team of junior creatives.
Smashing Creative Blocks
We all know the paralyzing dread of the blank page, especially when the clock is ticking.
AI has become my go-to creative springboard in these moments. When I’m stuck, AI-generated suggestions provide unexpected angles that shift my thinking just enough to break through.
Recently, I hit a creative wall that was a few minutes away from a total breakdown. With a print deadline ticking closer, I needed to rename a workshop for an upcoming event because two sessions had extremely similar names. All I needed was a handful of words, perhaps in pun form, but after days of intensive project work, my brain was completely empty. Rather than panic, I crafted a specific prompt detailing the workshop content, audience, desired emotional response, and brand voice. Within minutes, I had a veritable buffet of potential titles—some ready to use, many not, and others sparking entirely new directions.
Knowing how to craft the right prompt in a pinch isn’t just clever—it’s a career lifesaver. The skill isn’t hoping AI will magically solve your problem, but knowing exactly how to frame your request to get a useful creative back-and-forth.
This doesn’t diminish my creative contribution—it amplifies it. The time I once spent staring at a blank document now goes toward pushing ideas further than my initial instincts might have taken them.
Quality Still Depends on You
Like any tool, what AI produces reflects the skill of the person using it. I’ve seen canned, uninspired work from those who treat AI as a magic button, and amazing results from those who integrate it thoughtfully into their process.
The difference isn’t whether AI was used, but how it was used. Did it replace critical thinking or enhance it? The most successful creatives use AI to handle the predictable work while they focus on what machines can’t replicate: strategic insight, emotional connection, and cultural relevance.
Moving Forward Together
Our value has never been in mechanical execution but in vision, emotional intelligence, and authentic audience connection. AI isn’t threatening these strengths—it’s amplifying them by removing friction from our process.
The creatives who will thrive aren’t those fighting this evolution, but those who see how these tools can elevate their uniquely human contributions. I’m more excited than ever about the possibilities when human creativity and AI work as partners.
Tomorrow’s impactful marketing or buzzy TV shows will still be human creations—just made with powerful new tools in our creative arsenal.