We Are Living Through a Creative Inflection Point

Newsweek

27-05-2025

Advocates for ideas and draws conclusions based on the interpretation of facts and data.
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We are at a historic inflection point in creativity and innovation. For the first time, the bottleneck to building groundbreaking products isn't capital, connections or technical skills—it's imagination.
With the rise of generative AI, anyone with an idea can now create. You no longer need coding skills, venture funding or elite credentials. You simply need the courage to start and the right tools. But our systems have yet to catch up. They still prioritize credentials over curiosity, pedigree over potential. As a result, millions of brilliant ideas remain trapped in notebooks, never reaching the world—not because they lack merit, but because their creators never had permission to build.
I know this reality intimately because I lived it.
Growing up, I devoured books on everything from ancient Egypt to Henry Kissinger, maxing out library cards with an insatiable hunger for knowledge. Although we spoke Mandarin at home, I understood early that fluency in English was a gateway to opportunity, prompting me to painstakingly teach myself pronunciation using early internet dictionaries.
Generative AI at the World Artificial Intelligence Cannes Festival, an exhibition dedicated to artificial intelligence, on August 2, 2024, in Cannes, France.
Generative AI at the World Artificial Intelligence Cannes Festival, an exhibition dedicated to artificial intelligence, on August 2, 2024, in Cannes, France.
Sipa via AP Images
My father never attended university. He started as a security guard at a stock brokerage firm, relentlessly studied from within, and eventually became a broker himself. He instilled in me a profound belief: your potential isn't defined by paperwork.
Still, I initially took the conventional route. A prestigious scholarship sent me to the National University of Singapore—a golden ticket with strings attached. Post-graduation, I was bound by years of government service. Yet my entrepreneurial urgency was too intense to ignore. To reclaim my freedom, I made the pivotal choice to repay the entire $50,000 scholarship myself, emptying my savings and leaning on family support. It was a steep price, but it bought me something invaluable: permission to build immediately.
From Big Tech To Bigger Dreams
That decision led me into Big Tech, scaling Twitter across international markets after its IPO, launching regional offices for Brandwatch, and negotiating strategic global partnerships at Samsung. Working among exceptional minds, I saw clearly that brilliance alone didn't guarantee success. All too often, the freshest ideas—especially from Southeast Asia and younger, unconventional voices—were overlooked in favor of ideas polished by established credentials.
Then generative AI emerged, dissolving barriers I'd spent years climbing. Suddenly, you didn't need extensive engineering experience or a Silicon Valley pedigree to build something impactful. Like many entrepreneurs, I was technical enough to prototype but still dependent on others to ship. AI changed that friction overnight. It meant an idea could become reality in minutes.
This profound shift inspired me to launch ChatAndBuild—an AI-powered platform enabling anyone to transform ideas into fully functioning apps without code, capital or gatekeepers. I didn't have a safety net, but I had conviction. I've always believed failing is an option, but fear is not. The real risk was never trying, it was missing the moment.
When building ChatAndBuild, I thought about my younger self, my father's self-made success, and countless individuals worldwide with untapped potential. I also reflected on insights from my recent postgraduate studies in AI at Oxford, where classmates from Nairobi to New York debated the intersection of AI and human agency—not as theoretical abstractions but as personal realities.
These experiences affirmed a fundamental truth: talent is universal, but opportunity is not.
Beyond Apps To Intelligent Agents
As generative AI advanced, a deeper insight emerged. People don't just want to create static products, they desire dynamic companions—digital entities that remember, evolve and collaborate. Responding to this, we expanded our vision to include Non-Fungible Agents (NFAs): intelligent, blockchain-based agents with persistent identities and memory.
NFAs go beyond traditional digital assets. They're companions that evolve with you—writing poetry, managing your communications, coaching you or simply providing entertainment. Unlike standard bots, NFAs retain context, preferences and goals across interactions.
The best part? Creating an NFA requires no coding, only vision and curiosity. ChatAndBuild makes it possible to turn imagination directly into living, digital experiences.
We stand at the threshold of extraordinary potential. AI is more than a tool, it's infrastructure for human creativity. To fully harness this moment, we must rethink educational, social and economic systems to nurture everyone's creative potential. We must celebrate experimentation and reward imagination as the most valuable currency.
Execution is no longer the moat. Imagination is.
Let's not allow brilliant ideas to perish simply because they emerge from unconventional places or lack elite validation. Let's build a world where curiosity doesn't just speak, it ships.
Christel Buchanan is the founder and CEO of Pivotal, the company behind ChatandBuild, an AI-powered platform that transforms ideas into fully functional apps in minutes.