The Creative Journey Can’t Be Rushed—Even by AI

The marketing world has a new obsession: AI-driven efficiency. Faster content. More output. Endless abundance.

But here’s what nobody’s talking about: In our rush to optimize everything, we’re losing the very thing that makes creative work valuable.

If you’re leading a brand or marketing team right now, you’re feeling the squeeze. Smaller teams. Bigger demands. And a chorus of voices telling you AI is the answer to all of it. Use AI to write faster. Design faster. Think faster. The promise is seductive—efficiency without sacrifice, abundance without effort.

We recently welcomed Jeff Stark, Head of Creative at Suki AI, to our Best Story Wins podcast, and his perspective stopped us in our tracks. Here’s someone leading creative at a healthcare AI company—a company building AI tools that give clinicians their time back—and he’s pushing back hard on the efficiency narrative dominating our industry.

Jeff’s story matters here. He’s not your typical creative director. He dropped out of high school to make rock and roll posters for bands, learned screen printing in a basement shop, and somehow ended up at Google. His manager there told him something he’s never forgotten: “If we keep hiring the same person, we’re gonna get the same results.” That non-traditional path gave Jeff a perspective most leaders lack.

And now, at an AI company, he’s sounding the alarm. Not about AI itself, but about what we’re sacrificing in pursuit of it.

The Problem Nobody’s Naming

Jeff doesn’t mince words. He calls the AI conversation’s obsession with efficiency and abundance “false idols.”

“I don’t like that AI talks so much, or the people who talk about AI overemphasize efficiency and this idea of abundance,” he says. “I think those are false idols and they talk a lot about replacement, which I also don’t think that’s of value.”

Strong words. But they point to a real problem facing creative teams everywhere. When efficiency becomes the primary metric, you optimize for the wrong things. Volume over distinctiveness. Speed over depth. Output over impact.

The brands we remember aren’t the ones that cranked out the most content. They’re the ones with a distinctive point of view that took time to develop.

So how do you protect that creative journey in the age of AI? Here are four ways to think differently about making an impact, and making more meaning in the process.

1) Recognize That Finding Your Voice Takes Time

There’s relentless pressure to have answers immediately. Know your brand voice. Nail your positioning. Execute flawlessly. Preferably by end of quarter.

That’s not how creativity works.

Jeff references a quote from Miles Davis that guides his entire approach: “Sometimes it takes a long time to sound like yourself.” Miles Davis—one of the most innovative musicians ever—needed time to develop his distinctive voice. So does your team. So does your brand.

“The work I’m doing today, my point of view today…will change, will evolve, my perspectives will shift,” Jeff says. “I’ll learn new things. I’ll grow, I’ll get better, I’ll meet new people. It’s a journey, and it’s a process to figure out my take, my creative contributions, how I show up in the world.”

This directly contradicts the AI narrative of instant abundance. You can’t prompt your way to a distinctive brand voice. You can’t efficiency-hack your way to creative maturity.

These things require time, experimentation, and yes—failure.

Tip: Protect exploration time on your team’s calendar. Block off regular time for creative experimentation that isn’t tied to immediate deliverables. This isn’t wasteful. It’s essential for developing the distinctive perspective that will differentiate your brand.

2) Reframe Creative Struggle as Character Building

Like anything worth doing, creative work doesn’t come without struggle. The challenges? The friction? The moments when nothing’s working? Those aren’t bugs in the system. They’re features.

“It’d be easier to press the AI button that fixes it and gets me out of it and solves everything with the efficiency and all this stuff,” Jeff says. “But the suffering is a blessing because there’s something that’s gonna come out on the other side that you can’t understand in that moment.”

Think about what this means for your team. When your designer is stuck on a concept for days, when you can’t quite crack the positioning, when the brand refresh feels impossibly difficult—what if those moments aren’t problems to be solved with better tools?

What if they’re building the creative muscle and perspective that leads to breakthrough work?

Tip: When your team hits a creative wall, resist the urge to immediately tool-swap or look for shortcuts. Create space to work through the challenge. Schedule extended working sessions. Bring in different perspectives. Try wildly different approaches. The breakthrough often comes from pushing through, not around.

3) Question Every Efficiency Promise

When efficiency becomes your North Star, you start measuring the wrong things: 

• Output over impact
• Volume over distinctiveness
• Speed over depth
• More over better

The brands that win hearts and minds aren’t the ones moving fastest. They’re the ones with a clear sense of identity and creative work that reflects real human insight.

Jeff works at an AI company, so he’s not anti-technology. But he’s adamant about what matters. “I don’t want us to lose sight of the value of the journey and the value of the path,” he says.

That journey—with its unexpected discoveries, its hard-won insights, its character-building struggles—is where distinctive creative work comes from.

Tip: Before implementing any AI tool or “efficiency solution,” ask these questions:

• Will this free up time for more meaningful creative work, or just let us produce more stuff?
• Does this preserve our team’s ability to develop their craft and perspective?
• Are we using this tool to enhance human creativity or replace it?

4) Use AI to Protect the Journey—Not Skip It

Here’s the nuance: Jeff isn’t saying not to use AI.

After all, he works in AI. Suki’s technology gives clinicians time back with their families by handling documentation that kept them at work after hours. That’s AI done right. It removes friction from administrative work so clinicians can focus on patient care and life outside work.

“I believe in that type of AI,” Jeff says.

The same principle applies to creative teams. AI can handle repetitive tasks. Asset resizing. Initial research. Administrative overhead.

What it shouldn’t do is replace the thinking, the creative exploration, the development of perspective and voice.

“Don’t surrender your journey to any type of technology,” Jeff says.

That’s the line. Use AI to clear space for the creative journey. Don’t use it to skip the journey entirely.

Tip: Audit how your team currently uses AI tools. For each use case, ask: Is this buying us time for creative thinking and exploration? Or is it just letting us produce more without thinking? Optimize for the former.

Remember: Distinctive Work Requires Time

Jeff’s perspective feels countercultural. In a world obsessed with AI efficiency, it is.

But it’s also essential if you want to build a brand that stands out.

The creative journey—with all its struggle, experimentation, and character-building moments—isn’t something to be optimized away. It’s where distinctive voices are formed. It’s where teams develop the perspective that leads to breakthrough work. It’s where the unexpected, fun, hard, and weird stuff happens that makes creative work worth doing.

So yes, use AI. Use it to clear away friction and administrative burden. Use it to buy your team time for what matters.

But don’t use it to replace the journey. Because that’s where all the good stuff lives.

Want to hear more from Jeff about creative leadership, building powerful small teams, and finding meaning in the work? Listen to his full episode on the Best Story Wins podcast.

And if you’re looking for more ways to build a distinctive brand and do your job more effectively, check out our resources library or find out how we can help bring your content strategy to life.