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Stop using AI like a vending machine with Creative Intelligence

If you treat AI like a shortcut to avoid thinking, you’re the easiest person in the room to replace. And you will be replaced.

As I've written many times before, leaders are running stress tests on their org charts. Layoffs dressed up as “efficiency.” Teams gutted, roles vaporized—just to see what breaks without you. This isn’t optimization. It’s a live experiment in how little humanity the system needs to keep running.

At the same time, people are using the most powerful thinking tool ever invented like it’s a slightly smarter Clippy. Typing prompts. Copy-pasting summaries. Asking AI to do the hard part instead of learning how to do it better with it.

Creative Intelligence isn’t about prompts—it’s about perspective. It’s about building the mental muscles that make you irreplaceable when the layoffs come back around. Because AI won’t eliminate people who know how to think.
It’ll wipe out the ones who don't.

Get notified when Creative Intelligence launches—and read chapter 4 right now.

Creative Intelligence reveals the two types of thinkers emerging

Algorithmic Thinkers follow patterns, optimize existing approaches, and produce work indistinguishable from AI. Result: Replaceable.

Creative Intelligence Practitioners break patterns, discover new approaches, and use AI to amplify human capabilities. Result: Irreplaceable.

In this book, you'll learn:

Learn to think with AI—not just prompt it

  • Recognize when you're in a cognitive revolution (so you can ride it instead of getting left behind)
  • Catch yourself using AI like a vending machine—and fix it on the spot
  • Turn shallow AI exchanges into deep thinking partnerships
  • Switch between expanding ideas and focusing them (instead of getting stuck in endless brainstorming)
  • Guide AI through five distinct thinking modes that match what you actually need
  • Design AI conversations that work with your brain, not for it

Apply this learning to work that matters

  • Identify weak signals your competitors haven't noticed yet
  • Push past the same tired ideas you keep recycling
  • Process information without drowning in AI-generated noise
  • Spot your own biases before they wreck important decisions
  • Run proven strategic frameworks at machine speed

Actually get good at this, instead of staying stuck

  • Go from awkward AI experiments to natural collaboration (without thinking about it)
  • Notice when you're becoming too dependent on AI—and course-correct before it's too late
  • Catch AI when it's confidently bullshitting you (and know what to do about it)
  • Recognize your own thinking patterns in real-time (so you can improve them)
  • Build AI skills that make you more valuable as the technology gets better

What's Inside

Part I: The Cognitive Revolution
Understanding why this time is different and how to stop thinking like an algorithm

Part II: The Two Essential Thinking Modes
Mastering divergent and convergent thinking with AI as your collaborator

Part III: Strategic Applications
Real-world frameworks for strategy, creativity, decision-making, and learning

Part IV: Building Mastery
Systematic skill development that compounds over time

What This Book Isn't:

  • Not another productivity guide
  • Not a collection of prompt hacks
  • Not "10 ways to 10x your output with AI"

What This Book Is:

  • A guide to developing creative intelligence that makes you irreplaceable
  • Frameworks for thinking with machines, not just using them
  • The cognitive skills that will matter as companies seek their "Minimum Viable Human" baseline

Who This Is For:

  • Professionals who sense AI changes everything but don't know how to adapt
  • People drowning in AI hype who want practical wisdom
  • Anyone who refuses to become an NPC in their own career

Frameworks you can see, and use

Dave Gray's Visual Frameworks cards are used throughout Creative Intelligence. These frameworks serve a dual purpose: they clarify the AI collaboration concepts we're exploring while teaching you meta-cognitive tools that extend far beyond technology. And they look awesome.

Don't wait for the book. Read chapter 4 now and get notified when the rest drops.

What readers are saying about Creative Intelligence

The reviews and reactions are coming in...

We have to know where we've been to know where we're going and Greg takes us there. Creative Intelligence lays the foundation and future frameworks to better understand the role of AI not as a competitor but as a companion in doing more of what we, humans, are best at – being creative! A must read for anyone who believes technology plays an important and growing part of the creative process; an even more important read if you don't believe that.

Marty Ringlein
CEO & Co-Founder, Agree.com

This book offers a straightforward understanding of a complex area, providing methods for expanding your scope in utilizing AI (in my case, as a designer) as a critical thought partner rather than a replacement for your own critical thinking.

Stacey Swinehart Ganderson
Author, Make Adaptive Work

Essential reading for any critical mind seeking to think differently. Creative Intelligence explores a pivotal cultural shift: a world that is increasingly driven by 'speed over exploration and productivity over possibility', and what we lose in the process as creative thinkers.

Steve Makofsky
Senior Vice President, Software Engineering, NBCUniversal

Creative Intelligence: Thinking Beyond the Algorithm is a must-read for professionals and leaders making sense of this profound and perplexing technological and cultural moment. Greg Storey gives us historical context, while also providing clear and actionable guidance that resonates with contemporary workplace challenges.

Doug Powell
Executive Design Leader & Educator
Former IBM & Expedia

This book is perfect for people freaked out by AI. People who hesitated from learning something other than their core skill set. People in exposed jobs like design, research, marketing, product management, etc.

Ryan Rumsey
CEO & Founder, CDO School

Creative Intelligence is a helpful primer on the power of AI as a creative partner, exploring the why and how of working with AI to do your best work.

D. Keith Robinson
Principal Product Designer, Atlassian

If you have a pit in your stomach, thinking that maybe this is the generational line where you give up on learning new technology and go live in a cave in the woods: just read the book.

Sarah Baker Mills
Design Leader

Creative Intelligence presents AI as a thinking partner to amplify creativity, challenge assumptions and discover genuinely original solutions. Essential reading on human + AI collaboration, where the sum is greater than the parts.

Sean Wood
Founder / CEO, Human Pilots AI

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