CREATIVITY REIMAGINED
How Do We Keep Our Humanity in the Age of AI?
My answer starts with the urgent need to re-imagine our creativity for an age of complexity.
Author · Advisor · Professor · Entrepreneur · Producer · Pianist
MY PURPOSE
We are living through the most technologically significant shift in human cognition since the printing press.
AI can now reason, compose, and create. The question is no longer what machines can do.
it's what we choose to do with our unique human capabilities.
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I believe creativity is not a mood or an impulse, but rather a discipline.
And in a world of accelerating complexity, that discipline needs to be completely reimagined.
Not optimised. Reimagined.
That's the work I've spent four decades doing.
And it's never mattered more than now.
THE JOURNEY
The four pillars that support my approach to creativity
Where creativity meets complexity.
01
Mastering the How
creativity as a teachable, learnable discipline
02
Creative Mindset
The inner work of thinking differently. Discernment, empathy, struggle, awe.
03
AI & the Future of Creativity
Protecting what makes us human when machines get smart. Cultivating what I call the 'human premium.'
04
The Polymath's Advantage
Thinking across boundaries. The career that refuses categories leveraging poly cognitive and polyvalent capabilities
MR CREATIVITY
"Mr. Creativity. If Orsen Welles and Peter Drucker were to mate, the offspring would resemble John Kao, a serial innovator."
The Economist
Read some of my published writing
SELECTED WRITING
FORBES
Disruption or Discontinuity:
Why the Difference Matters
Why the language we use to describe change shapes our ability to respond to it.
FORBES
What Are Meta- proficiencies And Why Do They Matter?
Metaproficiencies are necessary in an increasingly disrupted world of work. But what are they?
W.E.F
Six Essential Intelligences
These six intelligences will drive smart leadership in disrupted times.
FOLLOW THE JOURNEY
A book, a course, a growing body of work, and a community of people re-imagining creativity for a new era. This is the beginning.
What I am working on, what I am thinking about
SUBSTACK
ONGOING
Yale: Finding Yourself in the Future of Creativity
Designed for aspiring entrepreneurs, future leaders, and innovators, the course explores the human and cognitive dimensions of creativity
ONGOING
Conference Chair on Human Intelligence at the American Academy in Rome
A six-week residency bringing together historians designers, thinkers strategists to explore the past, present, and future of human intelligence.
IN DEVELOPMENT
The Future is Human
A book on the fight to stay human in the age of AI.
JOHN KAO
About John
John Kao has spent four decades working across creativity, technology, and education. He launched the creativity course at Harvard Business School, produced award-winning films and Broadway theatre, built technology companies, and now teaches at Yale, where his students study what it means to stay human in the age of AI. The Economist called him "Mr. Creativity."
Keynotes, advisory, and creative facilitation.
GET IN TOUCH
For speaking engagements, strategic advisory, or collaboration inquiries.