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Can ‘Applied Creativity’ be the next ‘Design Thinking?’
The article emphasizes the shift from traditional design thinking to 'applied creativity' as a critical strategy for brands in the AI era. Companies that successfully integrate creative leadership into their structure are more likely to drive growth and outperform their peers, highlighting the need for organizations to cultivate creativity as a core competency rather than viewing it as a subjective quality.
FastCompany: In a January 2025 podcast episode , Open AI CEO Sam Altman was asked what the most important skill would be in the age of AI. His answer was—in simplest terms—the ability to ask creative questions. Last summer, Mustafa Suleyman, CEO of Microsoft AI, wrote that , for all the fear about AI, he genuinely believes that “creativity will remain the real currency.” And in an August Business Insider feature , Autodesk CEO Andrew Anagnost said that people will need to become “creative orchestrators” if they want to succeed in an AI-driven workplace.
If you listen to enough AI experts, you’ll inevitably hear the same common refrain: In the AI era, creativity is the most important asset an executive can have. So where are all the creative leaders? According to Nick Law, creative strategy and experience lead for the creative group Accenture Song, most people agree that creativity will be a core differentiator in the new way we work—but companies aren’t meeting that reality head-on.
Through a year of research, his team found that, while 81% of top business leaders say their organization can generate creative ideas, only 16% said they very frequently turned those ideas into initiatives that drove growth. That rare 16% saw major results from their efforts, though. According to their research, these hyper-creative organizations outperformed their peers on revenue growth, employee engagement, and customers.
The goal of the research, which is presented in Accenture Song’s new study “Applied creativity—and how to lead it,” is to understand exactly how that golden 16% of companies is converting creative ideas into real outcomes. It draws on a quantitative survey of 1,725 executives across 14 countries, as well as 15 long-form interviews with leaders from companies like Ikea, Lego, VSCO, and Rivian. [Graphic: Fast Company ] Accenture Song has boiled the results down to a three-part playbook that it’s publishing publicly—and, ultimately, hoping to tailor to its clients.
Accenture Song is not the first company to try to package a new organizational framework for a business landscape in flux. Major changes in technology tend to yield this kind of effort: In the early aughts, for example, the digital transformation ushered in the height of “ design thinking ,” a concept popularized by the consulting firm Ideo that claimed to help anyone, at any organization, think like a designer. As Fast Company has reported, design thinking is on its way out —and Law believes his team’s research shows it’s about time for “applied creativity” to take its place.
What is “applied creativity?” Design thinking was once the gold standard for companies looking to adopt a framework that would help them generate Apple-caliber creative ideas. But the term has fallen out of vogue at major corporations, to the point where job listings are now far less likely to include the term . According to Law, that’s because design thinking always had one fatal flaw, and AI’s shakeup of the workplace has brought it into stark relief. “The reason that it stalled when it stalled was because there was always a missing link,” Law says.
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The article discusses a significant shift in brand strategy that could influence how companies approach creativity in the context of AI, making it highly relevant and impactful for industry professionals.