Stop drawing vases with AI

Generally, I steer clear of tech-focused nonfiction books. Especially those that purport to dispense advice. Too much fluff. Too many pages of stories that attempt to reiterate the same point again and again, in slightly different ways to pad their page counts.

Greg Storey’s new book, Creative Intelligence, has a strong point of view and no BS. It has content you can use right away, from ready-to-use prompts that spark your thinking to thoughtful advice for evaluating and improving your collaboration with LLMs.

At its core, Creative Intelligence is about learning to work with AI as a thinking partner rather than using it as a vending machine that replaces your thinking.

Greg starts off with a strong example from a classic brainstorm exercise. The exercise starts with the instruction, “Spend thirty seconds and draw a flower vase.” The results are predictable. The follow-up prompt, “Spend two minutes creating an experience for enjoying flowers”—is where you see creative ideas and out-of-the-box thinking. Greg’s point in this example is that many people are using billion-dollar tech to draw vases. The purpose of the book is to consistently push yourself to that second step in order to stretch your thinking, challenge assumptions, and discover unexpected insights.

A few concepts from the book that have stuck with me:

• Positioning yourself as a subject matter amateur. Use AI to test your domain knowledge, not just fetch facts. At work, I happened to start a product manager rotation shortly after reading the book. I used one of the exercises to quiz myself about the extent of my PM knowledge. That helped me prioritize the skills I needed to develop and reach out to people with expertise in the areas where I needed more coaching.
• Using different thinking modes. As a designer, convergent and divergent thinking is a natural part of my process. In the book, Greg details five cognitive modes that map to divergent and convergent thinking with examples of how and when to use them to unlock better results. I’ve found these really helpful at different parts of my design process to think more deeply about my work and sharpen my ideas.
• Thinking in cycles. Instead of trying for a one-shot, focus on a collaborative loop—engage → generate → evaluate → refine → apply—to deepen understanding and uncover insights.
• Creating a collaboration profile. You can use the profile to coach LLMs on how to respond in a way that works with how you think and process information. Think: your preferred structure, pace, and level of experience.

These are just a few takeaways, but each one is an example of how Greg’s book has changed how I use AI day-to-day. Whether you’re just figuring out how to incorporate AI into your workflow or you’re experienced with navigating LLMs and want to push into new territories, I’d highly recommend this book.

Where to get it

Greg’s website, BrilliantCrank.com has links to all the places to buy the book. There’s even a free chapter if you’re on the fence.