The quest for symbiotic co-creation between humans and artificial intelligence (AI) has receivedconsiderable attention in recent years. This paper explores the challenges and opportunities associated with human-AI interaction, focusing on the unique qualities that distinguish symbiotic interactions from conventional human-to-tool relationships. The role of representation learning and multimodal models in enabling symbiotic co-creation is discussed, emphasising their potentialto overcome the limitations of language and tap into deeper layers of symbolic representation. In addition, the concept of AI as design material is explored, highlighting how the latent spatial representation of generative models becomes a field of possibilities for human creators. It also explores novel creative affordances of AI interfaces, including combinational, exploratory and transformational creativity. The paper concludes by highlighting the transformative potential of AI in enhancing human creativity and shaping new frontiers of collaborative creation.