Creativity + Value as a human
By Emily Broadmore
If a machine can do your job for you, what is your value as a human?
Over the past 18 months I have been deeply embedding generative AI experimentally into three businesses, and wielding it for clients who have AI-enabled workplaces. The problems I encountered, and am observing, as a result of my learnings have no official answers. I found myself spending Sundays on the beach with my children deep in philosophical conversations with various AI tools about the barriers to implementation I was observing across staff, teams, clients and sector counterparts - and more concerningly the lack of preparedness for talent pipeline and junior roles. I made up guardrails. I invented systems. I drafted frameworks. I tested them with the interns in my publishing business, rolled them out with the junior staff in my public relations business, tested my thinking with AI-enabled clients and the very few people around me who are working in this space.
Creative intelligence, I found, became the single biggest indicator of human value for many knowledge work professionals. ‘Can creativity be taught,’ I asked Australian artist and speaker Aline Gozin’a earlier this year, as I interviewed her for my international publication Folly. As a member of the Sydney University of Technology Board of Creative Intelligence, I had hoped she would have answers.
‘Absolutely,’ she told me.
Most people think creativity means being artistic; being a writer, a painter, a photographer. In our professional lives we have separated creativity from standard white collar knowledge work. In the AI era however, this is no longer the case. Creativity – the creation of unique ideas – is a strength that can be drawn upon to drive the outputs of generative AI in order to create exceptional results. This, I learnt through experimentation, was the key component that needed to be taught to knowledge workers: The ability to insert their human capabilities for creation, judgement and analysis into AI to drive innovative solutions.
Within months I became an accidental public commentor about the application of generative artificial intelligence into knowledge work, with all the early versions of this book snapped up and hundreds of downloads of the e-book. At the time I simply wished to spark the mindset shift required for people to understand just how much their jobs would change as a result of AI.
What I didn’t say publicly, was how fast I expected this to happen.
Ultimately, in 2025 I accidentally ended up pivoting from running a traditional public relations agency to specialising in creative intelligence – supporting the wider area of public affairs in a manner that brings Human Intelligence + Artificial Intelligence together for greater impact.
On the surface this appears technical, but it is grounded in the human, and in the creative. And this is a future of what we refer to currently as ‘knowledge work’.
Knowledge work refers to the skills many service based industries and white-collar workers possess as core value offerings for their organisations and clients. You may be a policy advisor, a research assistant, a comms manager or marketing person. You may write or think or advise for a living. But AI is faster and more knowledgeable, as well as being, in my experience, a better writer, than most humans I know. And industry specific software removes the need for junior level roles in many knowledge work professions including law, engineering and government relations.
In workshops throughout the country, I have seen knowledge workers who are fearful, AI hesitant, or curious but without a clear direction about where to start. I meet managers who purposely encourage barriers to AI adoption because they have seen that AI can do what they do – faster. And since an AI culture starts at the top of an organisation such barriers impact everyone downstream.
Through my work I seek to support people to view AI as a creative collaborator – a way to distil thinking, channel ideas, execute projects and carry out mundane work in order to free up time for valuable innovation. This is what creative intelligence is all about.
Creative intelligence matters because it bridges the gap between pure automation and uniquely human capabilities. Boards and executives are being told to ‘learn about AI, and understand what business problems it may solve’, yet they also know that creativity and judgment remain essential. The Creative Intelligence Compass draws on board‑governance principles, industry research and from the strategies I have been developing over the past 18 months. Rather than a one‑size‑fits‑all formula, it helps me to help you - identifying where AI adds value and when to rely on human judgment.
The future belongs to white collar knowledge workers that can:
Leverage AI for routine tasks while focusing human expertise on strategy, ideas and innovative solutions for their organisations.
Adapt from hourly deliverables to high value productivity alongside a drive to utilise saved time for innovation.
Apply true creative intelligence to the workplace – bringing judgement, critical thinking and out of the box solutions,
Embrace continuous learning and evolution in their abilities.
Check out the Creative Intelligence Compass workshops on my website here.