Generative AI in Communication: Creativity Beyond the Median

Generative AI in Communication: Creativity Beyond the Median

The white paper “Can AI Create Beyond the Median?” by Nanne H. C. Bos, published in August 2026 by the Scriptorium Initiative, examines how generative AI is transforming creative work in branding and communication. The starting point is the distinction between generation and creation: AI can generate plausible texts, images, or campaign ideas in seconds, but meaning only emerges through selection, context, and responsibility.

A central thesis is that AI primarily raises the “creative bar.” It makes professional forms of expression more accessible and increases speed, variety, and formal quality. At the same time, however, it tends to gravitate toward the median—that is, toward the cultural center from which models draw their suggestions. When many actors use similar systems, the results become more competent but, at the same time, more interchangeable. Originality therefore does not arise solely from deviating from what is statistically probable, because models also master the conventions of the unconventional. What matters is that someone selects the one suggestion out of a hundred that reveals something new and discards the rest.

Whoever makes the selection takes responsibility for the outcome. Bos illustrates this by examining how emotional cues are used. Brands appeal to a sense of belonging, care, or social purpose, and AI effortlessly replicates this language. It remains the task of communications to verify whether the organization behind the brand has actually experienced, chosen, or taken risks. Without this connection, a brand simulates a conviction it does not possess.