What if artificial intelligence is our chance to make work more human than ever?
Emerging Futures in Arts, Science and Business Collaboration
For decades, business and the arts have maintained an uneasy partnership. Businesses see artists as sources of inspiration but often struggle to integrate creative processes into their operations. Artists, in turn, recognize the power of business but resist the constraints of corporate structures. Historically, this relationship has been defined by transactional models—businesses sponsoring artistic projects for marketing or social impact while artists seek corporate patrons to sustain their work.
That dynamic is about to change.
AI and the Acceleration of Creativity
A new study from METR found that the length of tasks AI can complete with 50% reliability has doubled roughly every seven months for the past six years. If this trend continues, AI systems will soon execute complex, multi-day workflows autonomously—tasks that currently require teams of highly skilled professionals. In practical terms, this means that by 2030, AI may be able to develop and refine entire creative campaigns, design immersive experiences, code new apps or manage certain kinds of production with minimal human intervention.
This shift mirrors Moore’s Law, the principle that computing power doubles every two years. But what if organizational creativity itself is now on a similar trajectory?
Could there be a Moore’s Law of Organizational Creativity? Likely so, I believe. This concept would suggest that as AI, networks, and cognitive science progress, the capability of teams to generate and implement creative solutions could exponentially increase every few years (or even sooner, considering the findings of the METR study). If this is the case, it wouldn’t only pertain to automation; that’s the low-hanging fruit. By definition, it would focus on the intersection of human-AI co-creation, with the human element serving as the key differentiator due to the decreasing costs and increasing availability of technology.
Perhaps more than anything else in my lifetime, the rise of AI has prompted us to ask a fundamental question that few in business have truly considered: What exactly is human creativity, and where does it end and machine creative function begin?
Margaret Boden has long been a personal favorite of mine regarding this topic. I also heard many compelling presentations and questions raised on this subject at last week’s annual meeting in New Haven, CT, for the Society for the Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts (Division 10 of the American Psychological Association).
All this has got me thinking: could this be THE MOMENT when America fundamentally restructures how businesses and artists collaborate to unlock creative potential on a larger scale? I believe the answer is yes. Below, I present some proof points as to why.
Beyond Sponsorship: Toward Co-Creation
The historical model of business-art partnerships is largely one-sided. Businesses support the arts, but the unique creative expertise of America’s artists, poets, musicians, and other creatives is rarely embedded within business strategy. However, if AI enables creative work to scale exponentially, it fundamentally shifts the role of artists from external contributors to essential partners in innovation.
The signals I’ve been tracking suggest this will play out in three key ways:
Augmented Creativity—AI will not replace human creativity, but it will amplify it. Artists and creative teams will have access to tools that instantly generate high-quality visual, auditory, and experiential content. Businesses will integrate these tools into their operations, making creativity more fluid, data-driven, and adaptive to real-time market conditions.
Operational Efficiency – AI and automation will take over time-consuming production tasks—editing, formatting, and adapting creative assets—allowing artists and designers to focus on strategic, high-value work. This makes artistic collaboration a cost-effective and scalable investment rather than a luxury.
New Collaboration Models – Personally, I think this is the most exciting area of the three. Instead of businesses simply commissioning art, we’ll see co-creation ecosystems where AI-powered creativity platforms enable artists and corporate teams to develop ideas in parallel. This will lead to real-time innovation, where art and commerce converge to produce new cultural and economic value.
The Next Phase: Measuring Creative Brain Capital
To achieve transformation, we need to educate business leaders and the media on understanding creativity beyond the existing narrative of it being merely an abstract “soft skill.” Additionally, we must leverage advancements in cognitive neuroscience and industrial psychology to measure creativity as a strategic, investable asset. That’s where Creative Brain Capital comes in as a key performance indicator for future of work innovation readiness. Importantly, it evaluates creativity not just as individual’s talent but as a quantifiable capacity within teams and organizations.
Neuroscience has already mapped key networks in the brain that drive creativity:
The Default Mode Network (DMN) supports imagination, cultural identity, and meaning-making.
The Executive Control Network (ECN) enables focus, strategy, and execution.
The Salience Network determines which ideas gain attention and influence decision-making.
In business, this means creativity isn’t just about free thinking—it’s about aligning and understanding how innovation systems work at scale in ways that mirror our creative brain processes— culture, strategy, media, and market impact. Understanding this is what’s next for discovering new ways to enhance innovation. Companies that understand how to expand beyond human capital to quantify and invest in their organization’s Creative Brain Capital will gain a competitive edge, just as those that embraced Moore’s Law in computing reshaped entire industries.
Culture Futurist® Insight: Creativity That Means Business
If the past century of arts-business collaboration was defined by sponsorship, the next will be defined by integration. AI will act as an amplifier, expanding the capacity for creative work to scale at unprecedented rates. But businesses won’t just hire artists for one-off projects—they’ll embed artistic thinking into their DNA.
Instead of creativity being an adjective applied to products, marketing, or teams, it will function as the core operating system for interdisciplinary collaboration, where arts, science, and business professionals co-create solutions across the entire innovation value chain.
Instead of ad agencies dictating corporate storytelling, businesses will embed creativity processes into every stage of product development, strategy, and operations, enabling real-time narrative shifts that respond to cultural and technological changes.
Instead of businesses commissioning “culture,” they will merge creative methodologies with data science and behavioral research, making innovation a dynamic, participatory process rather than a top-down directive.
Instead of artists being seen as separate from industry, they will contribute to the architecture of economic ecosystems, designing not just brand experiences but new organizational structures, collaborative workflows, and market-shaping interventions that redefine how businesses operate.
Why This Matters Now
Human/Tech co-creation is the future. That’s why arts and business need each other now more than ever. Disturbing signals suggest America’s creative edge is fading:
Only 1 in 3 of us still believe in the American Dream. That’s not just an identity crisis—it’s an economic one.
Declines in creativity and business dynamism have been recorded over the past couple of decades. There are fewer new ideas, breakthrough patents, and papers that challenge traditional thinking.
Fear is the #1 barrier to innovation, yet 89% of organizations ignore it.
We’ve optimized for efficiency and scaled automation, and now we’re staring down a future where AI performs the work.
We’re overworked and overwhelmed.
Americans spend a third of our waking life at work. 8 in 10 of us are in the private sector. About 34% of artists are small business entrepreneurs, a big jump from the general public, which clocks in at about 9%.
Americans need our pay, but we seem to hate how we get it. Employee engagement is at an all-time low, and 82% of employees are at risk of burnout.
6 in 10 Americans think AI will soon do their jobs better than they can. And they’re probably right on some level. That’s why conservative estimates are that over 50% will need upskilling in the next 5 years to stay relevant.
We’ve built a workforce that’s trained to execute, not create.
If you’re a CEO, an investor, or a policymaker, here’s the bottom line: The companies that integrate creativity win on innovation, talent, and long-term resilience.
The ones that don’t? They’ll get automated out of existence.
What if artificial intelligence is our chance to make work more human than ever?
The future of business is not just AI. That’s only half the equation. The other half is the human side of organizational creativity. And right now, most American businesses are losing that game.
Want to be on the right side of it? Let’s talk.
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Theo Edmonds, Culture Futurist® & Founder, Creativity America | Bridging Creative Industries and Brain Science with Future of Work & Wondervation®
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