Snap’s Resh Sidhu on how the creative frontier has shifted

Every few years, someone declares creativity dead. It happened when Photoshop arrived. When the iPhone put cameras in pockets. When algorithms started curating our feeds. And now again, as AI tools flood our screens. Each time, the panic feels the same: machines are taking over, originality is vanishing, everything looks the same.

But from where I stand, at the intersection of art, technology and storytelling, creativity has never felt more alive. It isn’t dying. It’s evolving. The creative process is expanding beyond what any one mind could achieve, powered by tools that multiply imagination rather than mute it.

If you look for creativity only in the old places – glossy campaigns, gallery walls, award shows – you might miss it. The creative frontier has shifted. Today it lives in code, in augmented reality, in communities remixing culture in real time. It is being built by developers, designers and creators who see technology not as a threat but as another brushstroke in the palette.

In my world of creative technology, I see this every day. A teenager in Mumbai reimagines Indian art forms through AR filters. A creator in Seoul turns camera lenses into canvases for digital self-expression. A small team uses Snapchat’s Spectacles to merge real-world performance with virtual design. Millions are experimenting with My AI on Snapchat to brainstorm, write and dream up new ideas. The tools have changed, but the human impulse behind them has not. We still crave connection, story and wonder. The difference is that the stage is wider, and the audience can now join in.

AI is the latest tool to challenge what creativity looks like. Many fear it will replace us. I see the opposite. AI is a collaborator, a creative partner that never sleeps, offering endless perspectives for us to shape into meaning.

When I brief my teams, I encourage them to use AI not to finish ideas, but to start them. To break the blank-page paralysis. To explore fifty directions in minutes. The best creative minds I know are not fighting these tools; they are dancing with them. They know the magic is not in what AI generates, but in what we do next. AI sparks ideas, but humans bring context, emotion and intent. It can imagine form, but not feeling. It can suggest, but not care. Creativity thrives in that tension between data and desire, logic and intuition.

I have seen it firsthand. Concept art built in hours instead of weeks. Storyboards visualised before production begins. Speculative worlds prototyped at the speed of thought. These are not shortcuts. They are amplifiers, expanding the time we have to think, not just to execute. AI is changing the craft, yes, but it is also revealing what is uniquely human about creativity. Our curiosity. Our empathy. Our taste. Machines can mimic style; they cannot invent meaning.

For those of us working in creative and technology, the craft itself has shifted. It is no longer about mastering one discipline. It is about building bridges between them. The most exciting ideas now emerge from the spaces in between, where an artist meets an engineer, a storyteller meets a coder, a strategist meets an AI prompt.

In our teams, the creative process looks less like a linear pipeline and more like a playground. Designers sketch ideas with generative tools. Developers build prototypes that respond to emotion. We test, break, remix and rebuild at speed. That pace does not dilute creativity; it fuels it.

I have watched creators around the world build cultural movements overnight. A lens, a remix, a new AR experience – ideas once confined to studios are now global in seconds. Creativity used to trickle down from the top. Now it rises from everywhere.

When anyone can generate an idea, creativity shifts from ownership to orchestration. The real skill lies in what you do with the tools, not which tools you use. This evolution demands new muscles: curiosity, adaptability and taste. In a world where anything is possible, discernment becomes the creative superpower. Knowing why something matters will matter more than knowing how to make it.

So how do we keep creativity thriving in this new era?

First, we stay curious, not cautious. The instinct to protect the past is strong, but creativity has always lived on the edge of the unknown. We must keep experimenting, playing, and questioning what’s possible.

Second, we build cultures and companies that reward imagination over perfection. True innovation rarely comes from a polished deck. It comes from people who feel brave enough to try something unproven. Leadership today means creating safety for creative risk-taking.

And finally, we must remember that creativity is, at its core, human. The tools will keep changing – from brushes to bytes, from cameras to code – but creativity will always be about empathy, emotion and connection. AI can analyze patterns, but only people can feel purpose. It can generate beauty, but only we can recognize meaning.

Every generation faces a moment when the rules of creativity change. This is ours. We can choose to see AI as a threat, or as the greatest creative partner we’ve ever had. As Maya Angelou once said, “You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.” That truth still holds. The canvas has changed, but the spark within us hasn’t.

Creativity isn’t about holding on to what was; it’s about embracing what’s next together.