As AI tools become more widespread, the challenge is no longer just generating ideas, but keeping them original
Presentations look sharper. Emails read more smoothly. Proposals arrive better organized than they did a year ago. Behind all that polish, though, something may be getting lost. As more people lean on AI for ideas, the thinking behind the work could start to blur together, leaving less room for real creativity.
Nir Bashan, an Orlando, Fla.-based keynote speaker and author of The Solution Mindset who helps people become more innovative and creative at work, said AI is making everyone's ideas the same and that any advantage it gives will disappear as everyone gets access to the same tools.
"My deck looks as good as the next guy's deck, and our presentations all look more polished and a bit more high-end," Bashan said. "The problem is that eventually all of that will become the next level and everybody's work will look the same."
When everyone's ideas start to converge
Bashan compared the pattern to computers, which were once expensive and out of reach for many and are now everywhere.
"As the technology propagates, it starts to become ubiquitous instead of something special," he said. "It will average things up, but eventually it will level everything out."
Published research suggests AI can narrow the range of ideas people come up with. A Science Advances study of 300 participants from researchers at University College London and the University of Exeter in England found that stories written with AI-generated ideas were rated as more creative, yet were more similar to one another than stories written without AI.
Researchers at Duke University in Durham, N.C., and the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, separately found that responses to standardized creativity tests from a range of commercial AI models were more alike than human responses were.
Bashan thinks one reason may be anchoring, the tendency to be pulled toward whatever frame of reference comes first. When someone asks AI for ideas, the first answer it gives becomes the anchor for their own thinking, and because AI hands many people the same answer, they all begin from the same place.
What individuals can do
For individuals, Bashan said, the first step comes before the first prompt.
"What I advise people to do is actually write down a few ideas before you go to Claude of your own, and I will guarantee that 9 out of 10 times your ideas will be better," he said.
He also urged people to keep looking at familiar problems from new angles, including everyday HR questions such as a salary request.
"Look at employee motivation, look at different factors that you can use to assess the situation," he said. "Rather than the knee-jerk reaction, 'Oh, I've been doing this 20 years. This is obviously somebody who got another offer somewhere else.' Yeah, maybe, maybe not."
Another recommendation is a weekly technology detox, with employees blocking off 15 minutes to close the laptop and sit still.
"Sometimes the best adaptation of AI is not to adopt it at all," Bashan said.
"Most people go crazy when they actually do it," he added. "They sit there, they're uncomfortable, they don't know what to do."
People who stay still for a few minutes tend to feel calm and relieved, he said, and creative problem solving often follows.
What employers can do
Employers can set expectations for where AI belongs in the creative process. Gallup has advised employers to spell out where employees should use AI, where they shouldn't and how managers will evaluate its use, according to a recent HRD America story on how companies are setting rules for employee AI use. For idea generation, that could mean asking employees to write down their own ideas before turning to AI, as Bashan suggested.
Employees may also need support to keep thinking for themselves as AI takes on more of the work, and HRD America has reported on how training, measurement and guardrails may help.
Bashan said the language leaders use can shape how their teams approach problems. In hiring, for instance, a manager could respond to an application they dislike by noting its challenges and taking a closer look, rather than rejecting it outright.
"When you change your words, you change your surroundings," he said. "You change how you look at problem solving. And using positive words instead of negative words invites creative solutions."
He said a manager who shares a couple of cartoons or a meme before a meeting can lower the stakes, ease stress and shift a room from a rigid mindset to a more solution-oriented, creative one. He also said a little more empathy helps, since leaders often have no idea what's going on in colleagues' lives.
That kind of attention matters when workers feel anxious about AI, too. HRD America has reported that frequent AI users worry more about losing their jobs, but strong manager support can substantially reduce that worry.
In the end, he said, the change starts with individuals.
"It takes courage to step outside your comfort zone and to allow and invite creativity and innovative solutions into your life," Bashan said. "This is about looking inside internally and seeing what little tweaks you can make every day to invite creativity and innovation into your life."
