The documentary In Whose Name? contains a scene that captures a modern confusion about creativity. Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, sits opposite Jacques Herzog, the Swiss architect whose practice is built on patient work with spans, codes, light, and the way specific materials shape specific lives. Herzog speaks in constraints. West speaks in declarations. He pushes “vision,” insists on what a building should be, and overrides Herzog’s account of how it might stand up. The director, Nico Ballesteros, has said the scene delights him because you see Ye “yelling at Jacques Herzog,” imposing intuition on a discipline that normally moves slowly and collectively.
The footage is old. Its renewed usefulness is not. Generative AI has become office infrastructure. It drafts emails, summarises KPI decks, produces first-pass copy, and proposes compliance boilerplate. Machines absorb more of the work that used to signal competence. Humans respond by leaning harder into what remains: “big ideas,” “vision,” and the public performance of intelligence on top of work already done.
This is one reason brainstorming has returned with surprising force. It survived decades of evidence against it because it produces a feeling, not a result. In 2026, that feeling is being repurposed as proof that organisations still have humans at the centre.
