How to Use AI as an Editor, Not a Writer: Ed White

Ed White has a rule he's tested on his own writing: hold yourself as the writer, and let AI be your editor. Ed is a Senior Design Director at IDEO's London studio, where he co-leads the firm's AI portfolio across Europe. Before IDEO, he spent 12 years as a writer and editor at the Financial Times, Wired, and Contagious. So when he talks about when to use AI for storytelling and when not to, it comes from two decades of crafting his storytelling skills.

In this episode, Mina Seetharaman talks with Ed about two specific tools he uses to keep AI in an editor's seat: a "roasting agent" prompted to critique his drafts without any sugarcoating, and a simulated audience he rehearses pitches on before the real thing. They also get into what Ed is hearing from design leaders at Anthropic, Lovable, Shopify, and Google Creative Lab about how creative work is changing, and why he thinks the friction of writing something yourself is worth protecting rather than automating away.

Related Resources:

Ed is one of three instructors behind IDEO U's new course, Creative Storytelling with AI. Learn more here: https://www.ideou.com/products/creative-storytelling-with-ai

Ed’s interviews with design leaders on the changing nature of creativity include this one with Lovable’s Nad Chishtie: https://www.ideo.com/journal/building-the-last-piece-of-software

Follow Ed on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ed-white-59b9a63/

In This Episode:

Timestamps are approximate due to edits and ad breaks

(00:00) What a good editor does for your story

(01:00) Mina introduces Ed White, Senior Design Director at IDEO's London studio

(03:13) Why storytelling with AI isn't about outsourcing your thinking

(03:44) Ed's founding rule: "Don't think of it as a writer. Hold yourself as a writer."

(04:40) Mina's teenage son on friction: "It doesn't make me faster. It makes me better."

(05:26) William Zinsser, writing as thinking on paper, and why frictionless isn't the goal

(07:31) What design leaders at Anthropic, Lovable, Shopify, and Google Creative Lab are seeing collapse

(11:48) The IDEO IQ report: which parts Mina wrote herself, and which she didn't

(13:29) "What makes you competitive is your people.” The case for protecting thinking time

(16:01) Introducing the roasting agent

(16:18) Why a savage AI critique beats a sycophantic one

(19:22) The discipline of being edited: what separates a professional writer from an amateur

(20:32) Ed’s friend who texted: "This is hard"

(22:43) The simulator: rehearsing a pitch on a board member

(25:15) Maintaining taste, and why it isn’t always the right word

(26:10) Getting to a "seven out of ten" and the return of the generalist

(28:17) Angela Kochoska's healthcare experiment: five ideas, then twenty

(30:22) "I don't think you can skip it" — Ed on the one thing AI can't shortcut

(32:00) Rick Rubin, Diplo, and the case for lived experience

(33:00) Adam Moss's three phases of making and the one that's very human

(35:06) "The shortest distance between two people is a story"

(35:33) Zoe Scaman on somatic intelligence, and the writer Ed says to follow

(36:22) Audience Q&A: raising kids in an AI-dominated world

(39:31) Audience Q&A: what AI is actually good at

(41:32) Audience Q&A: what should clients expect from agencies using AI?

(43:11) Lightning round: Arco, Donna Tartt, and letting go of what you can't control

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