The Return of the Ideas Person

In Spring 2025, something quietly revolutionary arrived in creative work.
It didn’t make headlines. It didn’t break the internet. But it shifted the ground beneath the industry.

OpenAI’s new image model, which is now part of ChatGPT, lets users generate and refine high-quality visuals using nothing but text. There’s no need to open Photoshop, wrangle stock libraries, or brief a design team. You describe it. It appears. This feature was rudimentary until this year, but now it's creative outputs have risen exponentially in quality. Visual execution has been democratised, and that has major implications not just for designers, but for the entire structure of creative work. Because when execution becomes effortless, the idea becomes everything.

How the Creative Stack Has Shifted

For decades, ideas were everything. In the golden age of advertising from the 70s through the early 2000s, agencies were built around concept. Creative directors were rockstars. One big idea could define a brand for decades.

Think “Just Do It”, “Got Milk?”, “Love it or hate it”. These weren’t optimised into existence. They were summoned creatively into existence. Back then, execution followed the idea. The visuals, the copy and the media were all in service of the concept. That was the hierarchy: ideas first, execution second.

But in the digital age, something shifted. As data became more accessible and campaigns moved online, a new player entered the room: the optimiser. A/B tests, conversion rates, CTRs, open rates. The work became measurable, and with that came pressure: why take a creative risk when you can test 12 headlines and pick the winner? Slowly, the balance tipped. Vision gave way to versioning. Today, most creative teams are made up of:

• The thinkers – strategy, concept, direction

• The makers – designers, editors, writers, developers

• The optimisers – analysts, CROs, media buyers, marketing ops

All are important. But in recent years, the idea has often had the least budget, time, and attention. Execution and iteration ruled. Now, with tools like ChatGPT's image generation making execution nearly instant, we may be entering a new era. One where the idea returns to the centre. Not in a nostalgic way, but in a necessary one. Because when you can make anything, what you choose to make becomes the real value.

What Happens When Execution Becomes Free?

Now, you don’t need a team of specialists to create moodboards, mockups, prototypes, or pitch visuals anymore. With the right prompt, you can generate all of that in minutes on your phone, on a train, or before the meeting even begins. And if reading this is making you anxious, perhaps check out my piece on what to to next.

This shift doesn’t replace craft. It reframes it. Designers, writers, and makers are still vital, but the nature of their value is changing. Technical execution is no longer the bottleneck. The edge now lies in interpretation, taste, and strategic thinking. Those who embrace the tools won’t be replaced, they’ll move up the stack. They’ll become creative directors of their own workflows. Suddenly, the person who can dream the clearest, boldest, most relevant idea has the power. Because they don’t need layers of production support to bring it to life. Execution is no longer the bottleneck. Ideas are.

Big (Tom Hanks) Energy

Remember Big? The 1988 Tom Hanks movie where a kid wakes up in an adult’s body and ends up working at a toy company? There’s a scene where he’s sitting in a boardroom, surrounded by executives pitching elaborate, data-driven toy concepts. And he just raises his hand and says:

It’s awkward. It’s simple. And it wins. Because he understands the most important thing: what people want. Hanks' character is valuable to the executives because they've spent years running charts and forecasts, and measuring everything to within an inch of it's life. They've forgotten how to have ideas. Many of you will recognise this exact scenario in your own organisations.

That’s what we’re entering now. The people who win in this new era won’t be the ones who can polish the image the most. It’ll be the ones who can point to an idea and say: “This. This is the one. This is what people will connect with.” This new era will reward people who have taste. Intuition. Clarity. The ones who can think creatively, not just act creatively.

Creative Direction Is Coming Back

Ironically, the rise of AI might revive something that’s been in decline for years: true creative direction. Not art direction or asset optimisation. Not “make the logo bigger”, but the rare ability to shape ideas from nothing. To see what others can’t. To say no to the obvious and yes to the magical. And in a world where the output is instant, that taste becomes priceless.

The future creative team might look a bit smaller. But it will be sharper. One person with five great ideas and the ability to prompt them into being will outpace a whole department trying to align schedules and style guides.

Let’s be clear: this doesn’t make designers, writers, or artists obsolete. If anything, it frees them. The ones who embrace these tools will become faster, freer, more experimental. They'll shift from execution machines to creative directors of their own ideas. But what will set them apart isn’t their ability to render pixel-perfect files. It’ll be their thinking, their eye and their ability to cut through noise and find signal. And that’s a muscle more people are going to need to build.

The New Creative Equation

The old adage was: “Ideas are cheap.” But in an age where execution is instant, ideas are the most valuable thing you can offer. The software will handle the speed, but our minds still have to handle the spark. The brightest sparks will win. I'm not talking about vague “wouldn’t it be cool if” ideas, but clear, precise, resonant ideas. If you've ever worked with a brilliant creative person, you'll know what I mean. Ideas that move people. Ideas that understand the culture, the moment, the context.

The creative world is being reorganised. Not away from humans, but toward better questions. Toward sharper taste, and toward ideas that matter more because they’re no longer weighed down by production. So if you’ve ever felt like an “ideas person” in a world that didn’t seem to need them, your time might just be arriving. The tools are here, the execution is instant and now it’s about what you make and why. The idea is the weapon.