AI's Magic Trick: How Creativity Became the Trojan Horse

The parlor games are over. Now, it's time for something a bit more serious

In advertising, revolutionary products are often introduced through something simple—something easy, almost magical. The kind of thing most consumers can’t do on their own.

The iPhone didn’t launch with enterprise tools or spreadsheets. It was introduced with a touchscreen that made you feel like a genius. Tesla didn’t sell zero-emission vehicles; it sold acceleration.

AI didn’t start by reinventing accounting. It started by drawing pictures. And we were instantly mesmerized.

Most adults don’t think they’re creative. They can’t sketch. They can’t paint. They’ve spent their lives believing artistry belongs to someone else. So, when AI came along and said, “Type a few words, and I’ll bring your imagination to life,” it made us feel like a kid again. It was democratizing, empowering, even intoxicating. It was the spark everyone was waiting for.

But maybe that was the plan.

If you’re AI, and you want to integrate into every corner of society, you don’t start by replacing the analysts, the bankers or the accountants—the ones who build the systems you need to survive. You start with charm. You show the world the fun side, the creative side. You make people feel like artists.

And while they play, you quietly earn their trust, their budgets and their belief.

Once the world believed AI was creative, it earned permission to be everywhere else.

By the time AI moved upstream—into data, business and infrastructure—it already had its most powerful allies: the decision-makers who were never threatened, only enchanted.

The Coming Fade of Creative AI

And now, the curtain starts to fall on the opening act.

We’re already seeing the early signs: a quiet reduction in creative AI investment from the major players. The very companies that built their fame on image generators and music tools are pivoting their focus toward enterprise, productivity and automation.

Why? Because the Trojan horse worked.

The creative demos did their job. They made the technology feel human, approachable, even lovable. They softened the cultural resistance and sold the story of AI as a partner, not a predator.

But once the gates opened, priorities began to shift. Creative tools don’t monetize at enterprise scale the way data infrastructure does. And AI firms are businesses, not art schools. Now we can expect fewer breakthroughs in generative art and more in AI analytics, operations and systems that quietly underpin the world. The magic show is over. Now it’s time for something a bit more serious.

The Artists Were Never the Enemy

The irony, of course, is that true artists and designers were never the problem. They were the ones who understood from the beginning that AI is just another tool. Useful, powerful, but not sacred. It can generate, but it can’t discern. It can imitate, but it lacks intention.

The creatives who thrive will be those who use AI not as a replacement, but as a mirror—one that reflects their ideas with speed and scale, but never with soul.

Because in the end, creativity lives in the choices we make and the meaning we assign. The real magic comes from knowing what to generate and why it matters.

AI may have started with art, but art was never the destination. It was the doorway.