Every executive I talk to these days is chasing the promise of AI — and for good reason. AI can crunch terabytes of data in seconds, identify patterns our brains would never spot and spit out predictions with machine-grade precision. It’s like hiring Sherlock Holmes, 24/7, for every spreadsheet you own.

But once you’ve optimized the analytics, streamlined operations and outsourced the repetitive, then what?

According to the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2025, creative thinking now ranks as the fourth most important skill for the workforce — just behind analytical thinking, resiliency and leadership influence — and employers expect it to continue rising in importance over the next five years.

Creativity: The art of the unexpected

Try asking AI to invent something no one’s thought of before. It’ll give you a beautifully average answer, pulled from yesterday’s data. But innovation? That’s rarely born from averages.

At Disney, we once mashed up two unrelated worlds (cruise ships and Broadway) to create a new kind of entertainment experience at sea. There was no data model for that. Creativity lives in those collisions. It’s not linear. It’s jazz.

Innovation often comes from mashing up ideas from completely different worlds. That’s a leap only humans can make — not because we’re smarter than AI, but because we’re messier. And in mess, magic lives.

To discover the other ways we stand up against AI, read the full article over on Entrepreneur.com