AI and Creativity: What I Let the Machines Do (and What I Never Will)

Every week someone asks me the same question. “Kuya, aren’t you scared AI is going to take your job?”

Fair question. I’m an actor, a host, a director and a content creator. On paper, that’s exactly the kind of work people say AI will replace.

My honest answer: I use AI almost every day. And the more I use it, the clearer it becomes which parts of my work are mine.

I’ve been testing it in public

I’m not talking from theory. I’ve been playing with these tools for a while, and posting the results here on the blog.

I once asked ChatGPT to write VBA code that builds a whole PowerPoint presentation for me, then ran it as a macro. A deck in about five minutes. I wrote down the steps in How to use ChatGPT to create a PowerPoint presentation in 5 minutes.

Then I gave the exact same prompt to five different AIs: “Invest ₱10,000 for me.” ChatGPT, Grok, Gemini, Copilot and Meta AI. Same question, five very different personalities. That was a fun experiment. (Not financial advice, by the way. It was a test of the tools.)

And recently I set up an AI assistant on Grok to help me with everyday errands. It even helped me find a cleaner for my condo. Small thing. But it saved me a lot of messages and time.

What I hand to AI

After all that testing, here is my simple rule:

If it’s repetitive, I hand it to a tool.

Things like:

• First drafts of a list, a caption or an outline
• Turning my messy notes into something organized
• Researching options so I can compare them faster
• Building slides, formatting, the boring structure work
• Errands and admin that eat creative hours

Every hour I don’t spend on admin is an hour I can spend rehearsing, filming, or being with people.

What I never hand over

Now here’s the other side.

When I run storytelling trainings, I keep telling participants the same thing: put puso in it. Heart. Feeling. Your real experience. People don’t remember a perfect sentence. They remember a moment that made them feel something.

AI can describe sadness. It can’t remember the day your lola died.

When I act, I use my own memories. In a casting, if a director asks me to play a certain situation, I go back to a real moment from my life and play from there. That’s the job. That’s not something you can prompt.

Same with hosting. When I hosted the Artitude Group’s exhibit at the Ayala Museum, a lot of the best moments were unscripted: reacting to the artists, the room, a joke that landed or didn’t. Live energy is human energy.

So, these stay with me:

• The emotion. The reason anyone watches.
• The choices. What to keep, what to cut, what the story is really about.
• The relationships. Directors, crews, clients, audiences. Nobody books a chatbot because they had a great coffee with it.
• The final say. If my name is on it, I check it.

The viral formula is still human

Years ago I wrote about the 4 key elements to make a video go viral: relatability, making people curious, emotion, and something unbelievable. I still believe that.

AI can help you brainstorm a hook. It can help you edit faster. But relatability and emotion come from knowing people. You learn that by living, by performing, by watching how a real audience reacts.

I’ve posted 1,000 Instagram reels. If there’s one lesson in that number, it’s this: consistency beats luck. AI can make consistency easier. It can’t make you show up.

My advice to fellow creatives

Don’t fear it. Don’t worship it either.

Use AI like a very fast assistant who never gets tired but has never lived a day in your shoes. Let it carry the boxes. You decide what goes on stage.

The creatives who will struggle are the ones who either refuse to touch the tools, or let the tools do all the thinking. The ones who will thrive use AI to clear the boring stuff, then put all that saved time into the human part.

That’s my plan, anyway.

Are you using AI in your creative work? I’m curious how. Want to know more about what I do? Read my About page, or if you have a project in mind, let’s work together.