Top Tips: Stay creative in the age of AI
Top Tips is a weekly column where we examine the trends transforming the workplace. This week, we're exploring the relationship between AI and creativity, why convenience shouldn't come at the cost of original thinking, and practical ways to keep your creative edge sharp.
Have you ever heard of the prefrontal cortex?
It's one of the most fascinating parts of the human brain. It's where we plan, imagine, solve problems, improve workflows, connect unrelated ideas, and create something that has never existed before. It's the reason humans paint masterpieces, build rockets, compose music, invent technologies, and write stories that move people.
Now ask yourself: "When was the last time I truly exercised it?"
And that is not by asking AI for an answer, but by sitting with a problem long enough to arrive at an idea of your own.
That moment of struggle is becoming increasingly rare.
The concern begins when AI quietly shifts from being our assistant to becoming our default thinker. Little by little, we're handing over the very exercises that keep our creative muscles strong.
Ironically, AI itself learned from us. Every model was trained on books, research papers, conversations, operational strategies, artwork, inventions, and countless ideas created by human beings. Yet today, many of us have started relying on AI to generate ideas instead of generating our own.
So perhaps the real question isn't "How do we stop AI?" It's "How do we stop ourselves from becoming passive thinkers?"
Here are three simple tips that can help in your professional and personal life.
1. Give yourself permission to be bored
Our instinct today is to eliminate every idle moment. Waiting for a friend? Start scrolling through your Instagram posts on your smartphone. Stuck in a long line at the store? Watch a YouTube video. Curious about something? Ask ChatGPT.
The result is that our brains rarely get the opportunity to wander. Yet neuroscience suggests that mind-wandering plays an important role in creative thinking because it allows the brain to make unexpected connections between ideas.
Be comfortable sitting with boredom. Spend a few minutes each day without your phone, videos, or AI. At first, it feels uncomfortable. Then something interesting happens—your mind begins filling the silence with ideas.
2. Create for no audience
We've become used to creating things that are meant to be shared, liked, or approved.
Try creating something that nobody will ever see.
Write a poem you'll never publish.
Sketch something you'll never post.
Invent a product that will never exist.
When there's no audience, there's no pressure to impress. Your creativity becomes playful again instead of performative.
AI can optimize content. But it can't recreate the joy of making something simply because you want to.
3. Feed your brain experiences AI doesn't have
AI learns from patterns in existing information. Humans, on the other hand, create from experiences.
Travel somewhere unfamiliar. Read books outside your field. Learn a new hobby. Strike up conversations with strangers. Observe people in other teams at your workplace and in everyday life. Try something you've never done before.
Every experience becomes raw material for future ideas. Creativity isn't built only from information—it grows from the way we experience the world.
Final thoughts
The future isn't a competition between humans and AI. It's a partnership.
AI will continue to become smarter, faster, and more capable. That's inevitable. But the one thing it can never replace is the unique perspective that comes from your experiences, your curiosity, and your ability to think independently.
Every groundbreaking invention, career breakthrough, unforgettable song, scientific breakthrough, and revolutionary idea existed first as a thought in someone's mind before it ever became data.
So don't stop using AI. Just don't stop exercising the part of your brain that made AI possible in the first place.