This post also appears at www.apf.org

By Dré Labre

Creativity has always been shaped by the tools available to us. From the printing press to Photoshop, every new technological leap has altered how ideas are conceived, developed, and shared.

Artificial intelligence is no exception.

If the past few years have been the early tremors, we are now witnessing the first waves of an AI-driven tsunami that will reshape the creative industry (advertising, graphic design, writing, filmmaking, video, audio/music, architecture, etc.) as profoundly as the internet or social media did. But, as with any major shift, there will be both opportunity and peril.

The Great AI Garbage Patch

Whenever a new technology lowers the barrier to entry, an explosion of content follows. We saw this with the rise of desktop publishing, which allowed anyone with a Mac and a copy of Aldus PageMaker to call themselves a designer. We saw it again with digital photography and Instagram, which turned every smartphone user into a "photographer."

Now, AI is doing the same for writing, design, filmmaking, and music.

The result? A flood of AI-generated slop — a great AI garbage patch of uninspired, low-effort, and derivative work. Just as the early days of blogging led to a proliferation of poorly written websites and the rise of social media turned content into a numbers game, AI-generated creative output risks oversaturating the market with work that is, at best, mid-tier.

But dismissing AI entirely because of this slop is a mistake. The real value of AI in creativity doesn't come from replacing skilled human creators; it comes from augmenting them, helping the ambitious reach new heights.

The B-Team Becomes the A-Team, But the Mediocre Middle Disappears

AI doesn't make you creative. It won't turn someone with no ideas into a great artist, writer, or musician. However, it will enable mid-level creatives to perform at a much higher level, provided they have the drive and taste to use it well. The real transformation AI brings is its ability to accelerate ideation, allowing creatives to explore more possibilities faster.

The biggest losers in this shift will be the creative professionals who rely on playing it safe — those who coast in the comfortable middle.

The mediocre middle risks being automated out of relevance. As AI democratizes access to high-quality execution, the gap between those who use AI as a tool to enhance their creativity and those who simply let it do the work for them will only widen.

Firsting Things: The Power of Early Adoption

Many creatives are waiting on the sidelines, saying, "Wake me up when it's good." That approach would be a mistake. By the time AI is "good enough," those who have been experimenting with it will already have a deep, nuanced understanding of how to use it effectively.

Being an early adopter means more than just staying ahead — it means shaping the technology itself. Creatives who engage with AI today can influence its evolution, advocating for features that better serve artistic intent. It's about putting your fingerprint on a growing medium rather than waiting for a finished product to land in your lap. As I often say, if you're not part of the growth, you'll be left behind when the train is moving full speed.

Your Creative Co-Pilot Speaks Your Language

Change in creative development is being broadly accelerated by Large Language Models (LLMs). These models — available on platforms such as ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and open-source tools like Mistral or LLaMA — each have their own strengths, quirks, and personalities. Within each lies the potential to support almost any creative task, and the interface isn't a menu — it's language.

English, or whatever language you prefer, becomes the programming language. The beauty is you no longer need to conform to a tool — the tool conforms to you. Whether you're conducting deep research to scratch more surface faster, generating idea lists to curate and refine, or building out frameworks and references, LLMs assist with everything up until the most human part of the process: applying taste, judgment, and intention.

Creative Strategy with Shallow Holes and LLMs

When working on client projects, I often begin with a sandbox-style ideation session. Using AI — typically a large language model — I run what I call the "shallow holes" session. I explore four strategic entry points: Customer, Company, Culture, and Competition. The idea is to dig shallow holes in each corner to see where there's promise. If something glimmers, I dig deeper. If I hit rock, I move on.

The LLM helps me scratch more surface quickly, especially in this part of the process where the goal is quantity over quality. It's a codified way of thinking that translates well to AI. I find it accelerates the exploration phase significantly, freeing up more time for the curatorial work where human judgment, taste, and intention matter most.

AI as a New Brush, Not a New Artist

AI's biggest advantage is its ability to "scratch more surface, faster" during the early stages of ideation. It helps generate options at a speed that would be impossible for a human working alone. But AI is not the idea — it is a tool used to explore and refine ideas.

The true test of AI's impact on creativity is whether it enables us to push boundaries, to create work that is more insightful, meaningful, and resonant. This is where "taste, judgment, and intention" come into play. These human qualities are what separate great creative work from AI-generated mediocrity. AI can help execute, but it cannot replace the sensibility required to know which direction to take an idea.

Looking to 2035: AI and the Futures of Creativity

As far as the futures of creativity goes, some things will change — others will stay exactly the same. There's no point in automating a process when the process itself is the point. Painters will still paint. Poets will still translate emotions into words. And I'll still go to band practice playing real instruments with my friends. For many, the act of creation is intrinsic to the joy. But in the parts of creativity that are commoditized — where time, volume, or cost matter — AI will continue to expand and evolve as a natural part of the process.

We've seen this story before. Photography reshaped painting. Film redefined storytelling. Sampling changed music. The internet reshaped everything. AI will do the same — transform old processes and unlock entirely new styles, aesthetics, and formats.

Right now, we're in an awkward phase, using AI to mimic existing media. It's like early television, where shows were just radio with pictures. But eventually, we'll find the native creative vocabulary of AI — something that couldn't have been made any other way. That's where it gets exciting.

By 2035, I expect AI will be embedded in every layer of the creative process — not just as a tool for making, but as a partner in thinking. The most interesting new futures for creativity will emerge from this entanglement. From personal creative agents that help you riff on ideas in real time, to adaptive storytelling engines that respond to live audience feedback, the line between audience and creator will blur. We'll see new formats, hybrid artforms, and genres that don't exist yet — just like we did with video games, interactive film, or electronic music.

As for what comes after AI? It's hard to say. It's possible that AI may be the last great digital innovation we invent. It's recursive — capable of designing tools, optimizing systems, even suggesting new technological frontiers. Until we find the limits of what it can do, it's difficult to imagine what could emerge outside of that loop.

Hallucinate Responsibly

One of AI's more controversial qualities is its tendency to "hallucinate" — to make connections that are sometimes incorrect, sometimes absurd, and sometimes revelatory. This unpredictability is often seen as a flaw, but in the right hands, it is an opportunity.

Artists have always thrived on unexpected connections. The best creative work often comes from accidents — glitches in the system that reveal new ways of thinking. AI's ability to hallucinate should be seen as a feature, not a bug. When used well, it becomes a partner in abstraction, capable of inspiring new ideas rather than simply executing existing ones.

Adaptation of Obsolescence

The AI wave is not a fad. It is not a tool that can be ignored in hopes that it will go away. It is fundamentally changing how creative work is produced, and those who do not adapt will struggle to remain relevant.

However, AI will not replace human creativity. It will, instead, highlight the importance of taste, judgment, and originality. It will make it easier to execute ideas but harder to stand out. The best creatives will be those who understand how to use AI to push their work forward without losing their own artistic voice.

The First AI Native Generation: Beyond Gen Alpha

We've named generations like chapters in a long-running novel — X, Y, Z, Alpha — each a slightly new variation on the last. But the generation now being born will be fundamentally different, not just in culture or media consumption, but in cognitive wiring. These are the first true AI Natives — kids who will grow up never knowing what it's like to live without intelligent machines that talk back.

We could keep going with the chromatic cadence — Gen Beta, Gen Gamma — but that feels too incremental for a shift this foundational. This isn't just the next letter in the series; it's a new operating system. Maybe we call them Gen A.I. Or The Co-Gen (short for Co-Generated or Collaborative Generation), reflecting a world where their thoughts, work, and even identities are formed in collaboration with machines. Or perhaps we call them Generation N (Neural) (or Agentic Generation) or The Prompt Generation — because prompting will become a foundational skill, as core to communication as reading and writing.

For them, creativity won't begin with a blank page. It'll begin with a dialogue — an exchange between human and machine. They won't fear the uncanny valley; they'll be raised in it. They'll understand that ideas aren't linear, and that iteration isn't failure — it's fuel. AI won't be a novelty or a threat; it will be the baseline.

This generation will likely think less in static forms and more in systems. They'll create across media fluidly, remixing text, image, sound, and code like we remix playlists. They'll be less interested in originality for its own sake and more interested in intentional synthesis — what meaning can be made from the infinite inputs at their fingertips.

But with this ease will come new challenges: distinguishing signal from noise, learning to shape and sharpen ideas rather than just generate them. That's where guidance from AI-immigrants — those of us who remember before — will be important.

We'll need to teach not just how to use AI, but why we make things at all.

Foresight, Augmented: How AI Expands the Creative Edges of Futures Thinking

On the speculative side of my work, I've trained large language models to accelerate the more creative aspects of foresight — storytelling, provocation, and visualization. I've built custom AI agents that support tools such as the Futures Wheel, Three Horizons, Generic Futures, and various Design Fiction frameworks. These tools help generate alternative futures, narrative hooks, and even speculative artifacts — allowing for rapid ideation that once required days of prep or facilitation.

AI has become a valuable companion in these moments. Not a replacement for creativity, but an accelerant when quantity and speed are needed. There's no need to substitute AI for the parts of the process that bring joy — if you love ideating with sticky notes, sketching speculative devices, or dreaming up alternate headlines by hand, you absolutely should. But when the goal is to scratch more surface faster — to explore more corners, generate more options, and cast a wider net — AI can multiply your capacity without diluting your intent.

It's a thinking partner. One that adapts to your logic, your frameworks, your worldview. Whether you're using it to quickly seed a futures wheel, draft divergent trajectories, or explore weak signals from unexpected domains, it responds in kind — and always at the speed of thought.

While AI will never replace the magic of a live jam session or the spark of group discovery, it's an indispensable tool when jamming solo. The key is to treat its outputs not as answers, but as ingredients — raw material to be refined through your own taste, judgment, and intention.

I've even made some of my tools publicly available, including the Future Trajectories GPT and a Futures Wheel Explorer GPT — both created over two years ago and still part of my regular foresight toolkit.

Riding the Tsunami

AI is here, and it is changing everything. But as with any powerful tool, its impact depends on how it is used. Creatives who embrace AI with curiosity, experimentation, and a commitment to high standards will find new ways to express themselves and innovate. Those who resist or dismiss it will be left struggling to catch up.

The tsunami is here. You can either ride it or be swept away.

About the Author

Dré Labre is the co-founder of Never (nv-r.com), also known as The Department of Never Been Done Before — an AI-powered studio based in Toronto and France. A former award-winning creative director at top agencies, Dré built his career leading breakthrough campaigns for major brands before turning his focus to creating AI-powered art, animation, and activations. At Never, he combines decades of creative leadership with cutting-edge tools to deliver bold, innovative work that spans culture, commerce, and futures thinking. He's also a design fiction practitioner, part of the Near Future Laboratory, and the mind behind DesignFictionDaily.com, where he explores the edges of technology and culture. Because never been done before is what he does best.

Originally published in APF Compass magazine.