In January 2026, the largest human–AI creativity comparison yet tested language models against 100,000 people. GPT‑4 beat the average person at generating unexpected associations — but even the most creative half of humanity outperformed every model tested, with the top 10% far ahead.

GPT-4 beat the human average on a large divergent-association benchmark, but the upper half of the 100,000-person sample still outscored every model tested, revealing a very different human–AI creativity story in the tail.