Designing creative agency in the age of AI

Creativity is an innate and critical skill in the context to 21st century challenges. To navigate them, society needs critical thinkers, who are flexible, open-minded, and risk-taking: in sum, creative individuals. However, our creativity is often constrained by systems, expectations, and fears of failure, which affects how we engage on creative tasks. Creative confidence can also be influenced by AI: intelligent systems can generate, help or inspire, but they also can shape how (and whether) we exercise our creative agency.  Be it as an individual, as collaborators, as teachers or facilitators, for ideas to emerge you first need creative confidence.


Curriculum

In this IDE Master Class, you will explore your own creative confidence and that of those around you. We will break creativity myths, look into attitudes and behaviours and reflect on the mental obstacles that hold your creativity back, to be able to move beyond them. We will rely on principles and methods of design practice, creativity techniques, supported by cognitive and social psychology foundations, while also considering how AI tools are reshaping creative processes and perceptions. At the end of this masterclass, you will have reflected on what strengthens your creative confidence, how can you support others to be creative and create long-lasting creative habits.

On one hand, this IDE Master Class supports professionals who would like to unlock their own creative potential; on the other hand, it empowers professionals to take these insights into their own environments to support others (as team leaders, teachers, facilitators or collaborators) to nurture creativity and agency.
 

Learning Objectives

During this master class, you will learn to

  • apply the principles and ground rules of deliberate creativity in groups
  • guide a group through a creative process
  • select and apply effective creative techniques
  • organize and facilitate creative processes for specific problems or issues

 

Content

  • Deep dive into creative confidence and other related self-beliefs on creativity.
  • Case studies of creative confidence in multiple areas: e.g., design leadership; co-creation and participatory design processes; team collaboration.
  • Design practices (e.g., visualising/prototyping, reflecting) and their impact on creative confidence.
  • The influence of AI on creative confidence.

 

Speakers

Milene Gonçalves is an Associate Professor in Design Creativity, at the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering. For more than 10 years, Milene has been investigating creativity, design processes, co-creation, visual thinking and other design representations and how they support the development of creative ideas. Milene is the director of the Delft Design Lab Connected Creativity, a platform where research, education and industry come together to explore the transdisciplinary value that creativity can bring to tackle complex issues.


Registration: https://www.tudelft.nl/io/studeren/ide-design-master-classes/registration/

Website: https://www.tudelft.nl/io/studeren/ide-master-classes/ide-master-classes-2026/creative-confidence-ai