True Creativity Is About Meaning, Not Originality

In the age of AI, creativity isn’t about originality or output—it’s about meaning. When anything can be made, the only work that matters is what’s worth making.

There was a time when being creative meant being original.

You came up with something no one else had. That was the standard. Whether you were designing a logo, writing a tagline, launching a product, or making a film—the highest compliment was, “That’s so original.”

Now, originality is cheap.

You can ask an AI to generate ten versions of anything—ten logos, ten headlines, ten startup ideas—and it will do it in seconds. Some will even be good. Or at least good enough to fool someone who isn’t paying attention. So what happens to originality in a world where everything is possible and instantly available?

It becomes meaningless.

And when originality becomes meaningless, meaning becomes everything.

That’s the shift we’re living through right now—but most people haven’t put it into words yet. They feel it. Designers feel it when clients say, “Just have the AI make something first.” Writers feel it when their rough draft gets outperformed by a chatbot. Creatives across every industry are waking up to a strange new truth: the real challenge isn’t making things. It’s deciding what should be made in the first place.

The Illusion of Creativity-as-Output

Most of what we used to call creativity was actually craftsmanship. And that distinction matters now more than ever. Craft is the skill of making something. Creativity is the judgment behind it.

Before, they were intertwined. You couldn’t express an idea in motion graphics unless you knew how to animate. You couldn’t write a compelling narrative unless you could write. The effort required to produce something served as proof that you cared about what you were saying.

But now, the machine can handle the craft. It can do the layout, the soundtrack, the brushstroke. So the burden shifts back to you: Why are you making this? Who is it for? What are you trying to say?

If you don’t have answers to those questions, no amount of “creativity” will matter. You’ll just be remixing noise.

Meaning Is the New Scarcity

This is the paradox: when anything is possible, the only things that stand out are the ones that are necessary. Not necessary in a utilitarian sense, but in a human one. Necessary because they carry weight. They connect. They matter.

AI can generate 100 beautiful images. But it can’t tell you which one means something. It can give you every musical variation, but it can’t tell you which one sounds like truth. Meaning has no shortcut.

And that’s what makes creativity harder now—not easier.

It’s easy to press buttons and make content. It’s hard to look at the infinite and say, “This one. This is what we need.” That’s a form of creative clarity most people aren’t used to exercising. And it requires something uncomfortable: introspection.

You have to know what you want to say. You have to believe something. You have to risk being misunderstood. AI doesn’t care if it’s misunderstood. It has no self to misunderstand.

Everyday Creativity Means Moral Decisions

In the past, creativity felt like a skill. Now it feels like a moral responsibility. Because when you can produce anything, you are also choosing what not to produce.

That applies to everyone—not just artists. If you’re writing a curriculum, building a product, launching a company, or running a social media account, you are engaging in creativity. You are choosing what message to put into the world. You’re shaping what people think, see, feel.

And that means the central question isn’t “Is this new?”

It’s: Is this worth making?

That question is harder. It demands more of you. It forces you to grapple with your values, not just your tools. But it’s also the question that filters real creative work from the flood of generated content.

Meaning Is Expensive, and That’s Why It Matters

Here’s the irony. AI makes output cheap. But meaning is still expensive—because it comes from humans.

It comes from lived experience. From loss, joy, fear, love, doubt. From wrestling with something and trying to express the inexpressible. That’s not something you can delegate to a model.

So no, creativity isn’t dead. But it has moved.

It’s moved out of the toolset and into the soul. It’s less about how you express yourself and more about what you believe is worth expressing.

And in a world of infinite possibilities, that is the only creativity that counts.