Locating Creativity and Professional Communications in the AI era

Citation

MacRury I (2026) Locating Creativity and Professional Communications in the AI era. In: Donnar G & Parker L (eds.) Professional Communication: Influencing, Engaging and Transforming, Routledge.. London: Routledge. https://www.routledge.com/Professional-Communication-Influencing-Engaging-and-Transforming/Donnar-Parker/p/book/9781032895987

Abstract
This chapter considers creativity in the contemporary moment and situates creative work as a core concern in professional communication. It reviews creativity in relation to AI-inflected environments, using established frames of Person, Place, and Process to explore potential impacts of evolving “intelligent” technologies on creative practices. Defining creativity, “heuristic” methods (based on exploration) are set against (predefined) “algorithmic” approaches, with AI potentially disturbing this long-standing distinction/definition that frames creative authenticity. The focus remains on professional creativity (Pro-c), understood in contrast to everyday or amateur forms. The chapter examines how AI might shift definitions (and expectations) of creativity, and reshape processes, and risks, so marginalising human input. Creativity is not only a personal trait, but a capacity shaped by work conditions, constraints, systems of application and judgement. The chapter seeks to highlight the role of risk, failure, and pressure, in creative work, signalling socio-economic and cultural factors and opportunities unequally distributed in creative industry organisations. The chapter calls for renewed attention to appropriateness and reflective judgement in creative work. It proposes a 3Rs response, dubbed “Reflection, Renegotiation, and Revision”, as ways to engage with some changes AI tech implies, and to best preserve creativity’s psychosocial and cultural contributions.

Keywords
Defining creativity; Artificial Intelligence; Creative industries; Communiction; Organisational practice