Speaking at the humAIn event on October 13, Uglow suggested the chief problem with AI isn’t a shortage of things it can do, but rather a shortage of imagination about what we should do with it.
Closing humAIn 2026, Peabody-winning writer and creative Tea Uglow took aim at an industry busy adopting tools without sufficiently rethinking where they might lead. “It’s like we’ve invented string, but we haven’t invented knots yet,” Uglow told delegates. “Everyone’s just running around with bits of string.”
A founding member of Google’s Creative Lab, Uglow built its London and Sydney teams during 17 years at the company, and is now working with AI startups. Her collaborations with artists and cultural institutions explored new possibilities for digital storytelling. Her alternative was a bigger role for creative imagination.
“We should be making sci-fi about what we want the future to be,” she argued.
Her provocation ranged from a child’s growing distrust of anything seen on a screen, to the economic value of human connection when synthetic content becomes abundant. Uglow’s challenge to marketing, media and creative leaders was to look beyond immediate productivity gains, and take responsibility for imagining what comes next.
Watch Tea Uglow’s closing provocation below.