Remember when your usual commute got disrupted, forcing you to take a different route—only to discover a shortcut through backstreets filled with murals, new coffee shops, and a side to a familiar city you’d never noticed before – and it was 10 minutes quicker? There’s something delightfully human about watching ideas unfold, mistakes transform into masterpieces, and random collisions spark genius. That’s precisely why reasoning models are about to become every creative professional’s favourite collaborator.
The Problem with Perfect
Here’s the thing: Traditional AI like ChatGPT-4o and Claude are like colleagues who always show up with immaculate presentations but never share their messy notebooks—you know, the ones where all the real creative gold lives. They’re good but also black boxes, serving up polished solutions without letting us peek at the beautiful chaos of creation. They leave us a little cold.
Enter Reasoning Models: The AI That Shows Its Work
Imagine instead an AI that thinks like your most transparent collaborator—the one who fills shared Miro boards with wild connections, leaves coffee-stained sketches everywhere, and isn’t afraid to say, “Okay, hear me out. This might sound a little dumb…but…”
Why This Matters (And Why It’s Fun)
1. The “Wait, Go Back!” Moment
Just like Pixar’s famously central bathrooms, designed to force serendipitous encounters, reasoning models create spaces for happy accidents:
Traditional AI: “Here’s your tagline.”
Reasoning AI: “So I was thinking about ocean waves, which made me think about rhythm, which reminded me of jazz, which led to this completely unexpected approach to your coffee brand…”
And sometimes, that weird connection between waves and jazz sparks your next big idea.
2. The Beautiful Mess
Clive Wilkinson, the architect behind the Googleplex redesign, emphasized creating spaces that encourage spontaneous employee interactions. Reasoning models do something similar by exposing their thought processes:
- They show dead ends (which often lead to live beginnings)
- They reveal surprising connections (like that time someone combined chocolate with potato chips)
- They make mistakes that make you go, “Hang on… that’s actually kinda interesting, let’s follow that for a while…”
3. The Joy of Co-Creation
Like those Nike By You sneakers where half the fun is playing with the design tool, reasoning models turn AI interaction from “asking for answers” into “going on an adventure”:
- “Let’s see what happens if we combine Art Deco with K-pop aesthetics…”
- “Show me how you got from ‘sustainable’ to ‘butterfly effect’ in that headline…”
- “Can we rewind to that weird metaphor from step 3?”
Making Magic Happen
For Art Directors:
Instead of requesting “a minimalist logo,” watch the AI explore everything from sacred geometry to street art, explaining each creative leap. That tangent about Russian constructivism? It might just solve your pharma client’s branding challenge.
For Copywriters:
Rather than generating ten headlines, see how AI connects consumer psychology, cultural trends, and linguistic patterns. That failed wordplay attempt might spark your next award-winning campaign.
For Strategists:
Watch patterns emerge as the AI connects the dots between market data, cultural shifts, and human behaviour—like having a brilliant friend think aloud during a brainstorming.
The Human Touch
The best part? Like those open-kitchen restaurants where watching the chef adds flavour to the meal, reasoning models make AI collaboration more human, fun, and creative. They’re not here to replace your creative genius—they’re here to be your creative gym buddy, spotting your ideas and helping you push them further.
The Bottom Line
In a world obsessed with perfection, reasoning models bring back the joy of the journey. They’re the AI equivalent of those glass-walled design studios where every sketch and Post-it becomes part of the story. Sometimes, the best ideas come not from asking for answers but from watching someone—or something—think out loud.
After all, if some of history’s most significant innovations came from scientists leaving Petri dishes in the wrong place or engineers having chance encounters by the water cooler, imagine what might happen when we embrace the beautiful chaos of AI thinking in plain sight.
So, if your best ideas come from watching cooking shows, doodling in meetings, or taking the scenic route to work, you’ll love reasoning models. They’re basically your creative process but with really good note-taking skills.
Now, who’s ready to make some happy accidents?