For more than 30 years – since the dawn of internet in the Philippines – I’ve been working around technology, connectivity, automation, and digital transformation. I have always been on the lookout for new trends in technology. I have been in the ICT industry long enough to recognize a pattern when I see one.

One of the latest patterns I have seen lately is the decline of creativity because of AI (Artificial Intelligence). AI was supposed to make creative processes more intuitive and quicker. By streamlining workflows, you are supposed to be able to deliver more designs and give more life to your imaginations! But what we are seeing of late is the dependence of designers on AI. Designers now rely on prompt, not on creative thinking.

We are seeing the breakdown of creativity. No, AI didn’t cause it. We slowly (maybe not deliberately) handed it over. The quick delivery culture crept into the creative world. Not maliciously. Not intentionally. But incrementally—one shortcut, one tool, one “this will save time” decision at a time.

And now, I think we need to pause and ask a harder question: Are we still creating—or are we mostly approving what machines suggest? Are we “outsourcing” our creative work to AI?

I wish this is just a theory. Unfortunately, this is not. This is from an observable pattern that is emerging and looming larger, making it hard to ignore. Across multiple sectors, the same signals keep appearing—different tools, but the same outcomes..

These are the sectors being impacted by AI:

1. Media, Film and Television

You can see it from many of the contents in social media and video streaming sites. Scripts are now faster to produce. Storyboards are cleaner and more fluid. As work can be done faster, pre-production is now more efficient – and can even be done remotely or while on travel! Ask where the digital nomads were sitting while working on your contents. Yes, maybe on the beach!

After you have used Generative AI for quite some time, you begin to see the following patterns:

- Many stories feel familiar. 
- Most contents are Safe.
- Most endings are Predictable.

This means AI didn’t kill originality (it can differ on how your prompt creatively), but it quietly discouraged risk-taking among scriptwriters. It’s like déjà vu when you are watching an episode from your favorite streaming service.

Because AI algorithms can now generate a “good enough” story arc, fewer people push for uncomfortable or culturally challenging narratives—especially newcomers trying to break in. Scriptwriters default to what is safe and non-offensive.

2. Music (Lyrics & Audio)

I have tried this one. I asked AI to generate lyrics for a song based on the theme that I wanted. Talk about AI-assisted poetry. The results were short of incredible! The word count, the thought process and the rhymes are just seemingly perfect! Who wants a walk in the woods or time by the riverbank to write when you can spit out lyrics in minutes while having coffee in your favorite café?

Then there is the musical composition, mastering, and voice synthesis. These have lowered the music creation barriers dramatically. One can now create a full single in a day, a full album in a week or two with full label and cover design!
This may not be bad. In some cases it might even be good. But it’s also dangerous.

We’re starting to hear music optimized for platforms, not people. Tracks designed to fit playlists instead of emotions. Creativity is slowly bending toward what performs, not what moves. This is why unlike the music produced before AI, most songs’ popularity now quickly fades. Most AI generated songs are hardly comparable to the classics.

3. Marketing, Advertising & Branding

This one hit very close to home. All because of the tools now available. I was once able to generate a campaign while driving – and that without typing a single word! The reason more (if not most or all) marketers now default to AI is because of the quality of work. AI-generated copy converts. Headlines test well. Campaigns scale fast.

If you notice though, brands are beginning to sound eerily similar. Because creativity is being reduced to metrics, storytelling has become shallow—and the differentiation fades. Campaign performance improves, but the brand identity weakens. And we will be seeing more of this as marketers now scramble towards Answer Engine Optimization and Augmented Reality Search.

4. Architecture, Urban Design & Interior Design

Would you live in a house designed by AI?

Latest versions of design tools are now AI-enabled. Need a new concept for a house on a cliff by the beach? Just prompt your parameters. Want to know where the building should face and how to maximize sunlight and wind flow? Yes, just give the prompt. Generative designs are now more in tune and futuristic,
There is no question that generative design tools are powerful. However, when young architects jump straight to optimized layouts and AI-generated forms, something critical is lost creative intent.

Architecture isn’t just about efficiency. It’s also about memory, culture, behavior, and human experience. When designers become operators instead of thinkers, we risk building cities that work—but don’t mean anything. We end up with structures with no human element and which even its supposed architect cannot fully explain.

AI is great for research, especially for standards verification and clash detection. It also allows full online collaboration, more efficient project management and impressive design presentation. AI generated designs can also prove helpful as part of the research conducted prior to actual creative process. The output should be original and bereft of duplicity.

5. Visual Arts & Content Creation

Visual Arts and Content Creation have just been democratized. Tons of AI-assisted content creation tools are available online – for free! The flood of AI-generated visuals has changed the content economics overnight. You don’t even need a powerful desktop to create a reel a reel to post in your favorite social media page. Need a quick video edit? You can probably ask your 10-year-old son to do it!

We now live in the digital era where content creation is cheap and its volume is endless. But these are contents without value. You cannot even recognize the author (no one wants their output attributed to AI, so they take great pains in removing the watermarks.) We have visuals with no artist recognition. Gone is the sustainability for human artists. Originality is now harder to defend in a market overwhelmed by instant outputs.

6. Personal Training and Coaching

This one maybe we all can relate. You go to an event where you have been asked to deliver an opening or closing remarks. And you only have less than half an hour to prepare. When your time to speak comes, you get up and open your phone – reading your 5-minute speech flawlessly. Thanks Gemini or ChatGPT!

Your HR Team submitted a new training program aimed at improving employee engagement. The topic seems relevant and relates to the age bracket of your employees. You did not need to ask how they were able to present this after discussing the plan in your team meeting the day before. The proposed training module seems to be well structured. You did not bother to check if the same has also been used by your competitors and vetted against your company values and culture.

You will also see this from many online books you can download. You will be able to identify or discern an AI-generated book which reeks of affiliate marketing links. These books lack the substance and sincerity from a human author. The author (who claims to have written the material) is too detached from the content and cannot speak from personal knowledge or experience.

I believe that AI didn’t stifle creativity. But in the world where time to market matters, we redesigned creative workflows to reward speed over thinking. We jumped over creativity to skirt around the usual roadblocks or challenges such as Friction, Exploration, Wrong turns and Deep thinking. Creativity thrives on these. But these take time. And we now do not want to give that.

So, we turn to AI because it excels at removing all of that. We don’t realize that when the creative struggle disappears, originality often follows. Hold that thought. Each of us are just one prompt away from losing our creativity.

"Each of us are just one prompt away from losing our creativity."

If we, as humans would only refine what AI generates, then authorship slowly shifts—without anyone formally deciding it should. Then creative decline starts. It will be slow and you will not realize you no longer have the edge.

We now need to ask ourselves – where are we heading with this AI Boom? Allow me to present at least 2 scenarios. I should be more imaginative to present more but I don’t want this to be a doomsday blog…

Scenario 1: The Creative Talent Pipeline Breaks

This one worries me most. We are seeing entry-level creative roles already disappearing. We have Junior designers being replaced by AI-assisted seniors. We also have writers skipping years of iterative growth with no personality at all. Will also see Architects bypassing conceptual training.

People need to learn creativity through practice, feedback, critique, and even failure (the greatest teacher of all). By skipping these, where will the next generation of creative masters come from? We are not talking here about jobs being lost. This a creative capability collapse waiting to happen.

Scenario 2: A World That Looks and Sounds the Same

AI learns from data. That means what it gives is always based on the data and its learning from whatever is already created and available. When AI generates a design or script, it will use the available and same models, it will use the same datasets, apply the same optimization logic. That means we get global uniformity.

With global sameness, brands blur together, films will feel interchangeable, and even cities will lose cultural identity. In the race to be the first, we end up to being all the same. No distinction and no originality. We will have high volume but with low soul in our creation.

(I should have included Scenario 3: Where AI Can Decide and Act Independently, but I reserve that for a separate article.)

I am not against AI being used in the creative sector. I believe AI should encourage more creativity due to available data sources. It should lead to a more intelligent design that transcends boundaries.

I deeply believe also that creativity is still the hardest human capability to replace – even with the proliferation of Agentic AI. Creativity is not just about output. There are distinct qualities you cannot teach AI, such as judgement, taste, ethics, timing, cultural intuition, emotional intelligence and empathy. Yes, AI can generate answers brilliantly but only humans can decide which questions really matter.

Like I said, this is not a doomsday blog. We still have time to direct the use of AI to more favorable futures. These are:

Future 1: Using AI as an Amplifier, Not a Main Support

I would like to see a future where we only relegate some tasks to AI so we can focus on being more creative. I would like AI only to handle:

- Mundane Repetition
- Predictable Variations
- Scalable Executions

Keeping humans in the loop, we should lead in:

- Crafting of Vision and Mission
- Writing Unique Narratives (from personal knowledge/experience)
- Determining and defining Meaning in Design
- Acceptance of Accountability and Responsibility

Doing these does not stifle or cripple creativity. On the contrary, it promotes deeper and braver creativity – which can scale.

Future 2: Creating Jobs That Evolve Instead of Disappear

AI should not be allowed to replace human creativity. Creative roles should not vanish but should instead mature. Here is what happens when creativity rules:

- Designers become creative strategists
- Architects become experienced storytellers
- Marketers become narrative/impact builders
- Artists become world-creators

You cannot have job security from resisting AI. It comes from being irreplaceably human.

Here are some considerations I would like to propose to protect the creative sector.

For the Industry

We need to stop optimizing creativity out of the process. Instead, we should:

- Separate ideation from automation
- Require human-first concepts
- Reward originality—not just efficiency

For the Academe

We must teach thinking (creative and critical) before tools. Without needlessly discouraging the use of AI, we must:

- Delay AI reliance in early training
- Grade process, not just output
- Rebuild critique, ethics, and theory

For the Government

We ask for the government not to treat Creativity merely as a “soft sector". It should be given vital importance by classifying it as a Cultural Infrastructure. Laws and incentives should be in place and strengthened to:

- Protect creative labor and intellectual property
- Fund arts and creative education
- Establish ethical AI-use standards (with a workable AI Governance Framework)

For The Rest of Us Creatives

We should also be honest with ourselves and give more room for our creativity to grow. We also need to start the following disciplines:

- Think before prompting. Allow yourself time and space to come out with something unique and original.
- Don’t be too reliant on AI. Create without it regularly.
- Leave your comfort zone. Design bravely. Avoid conformity and sameness.
- Enhance your uniqueness. Build your own brand,
- Protect your voice and ideas.

We live in a world where convenience is seductive. But creativity has never thrived there. Creativity has never been convenient, fast or easy. It takes time, deep thinking, uniqueness, grit and determination. AI does not have that.

I am not suggesting banning AI. Far from it. As a matter of fact, I promote its adoption and support its advancement. But only if it makes our lives better and does not relegate us to the sidelines. We should use it only to automate and protect.

Let’s not wait until creativity is measurably gone. Rebuilding it will be far harder than defending it now. Creativity is a national asset, a vital resource we need to protect.

So, my call or appeal is direct and urgent:

The sector and its stakeholders – that is government, academe, industry, creatives, and technologists – need to sit at the same table. We need to work together in protecting this “national treasure”. We must do it now and not later. We cannot wait to act after the damage is visible and irreversible.

We need to treat this with urgency because AI will shape the future of creative work. But only we can decide whether that future is efficient and empty—or meaningful and human. Ignoring this urgency will severely impact jobs and lives.

The creative window is still wide open. But it’s closing faster than most of us realize.

--XEM--