How can AI improve your capacity to innovate?
Gen AI can amplify and boost human creativity. But what are the pros, cons, and implications when using AI?
But before we dive in, let's look at the bigger picture.
According to McKinsey
Organisations with strong innovation cultures already use Gen AI, a rate six times higher than that of late adopters.
They are not just using AI but mastering it and discovering how to ask the right questions.
They also create a culture that quickly learns.
Innovation is vital for survival. Three-quarters of businesses admit they must rethink their business models to stay viable.
Gen AI is another innovation tool that can significantly sharpen your competitive edge.
But it's not just about the technology. As McKinsey points out:
As workers increasingly use gen AI to tackle more repetitive tasks, the human-centric skills of critical thinking and decision-making will become ever more important
Leaders have an opportunity to humanise work by deciding where, when and how their teams use Gen AI so that people are freed up from routine tasks to do more creative, collaborative, and innovative thinking.
Free up your time so you can focus on more value-added activities.
A typical AI use case is to extract new patterns, spot opportunities and reduce time spent on routine work:
Engineers are using machine learning to identify new battery materials for EVs.
Pharmaceutical companies use AI to identify novel pharmaceutical active ingredients.
AI is helping editors in the movie business speed up routine media logging and editing tasks, freeing up time to focus on the storytelling.
AI can spot socio-economic determinants of health outcomes from unstructured data sets to target the design of new interventions.
Numerous AI-powered online methods are now available to speed up routine market research data collection and curation.
Applications such as Microsoft CoPilot are democratising data analysis. Creating actionable insights from reports and unstructured data will help teams spot emerging possibilities faster.
Unlock Your Creative Intelligence
Critical thinking skills become even more necessary as AI tools become more available.
The saying garbage in, garbage out is never more relevant. AI is a shiny new toy in its infancy. There are upsides to AI but also limitations. Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should!
For instance, marketing leaders are concerned that AI-powered marketing platforms are creating a slew of tactical initiatives. At the touch of a button, you can run numerous automated experiments across many channels. However, you risk a disconnected sneeze of initiatives that lack a cohesive strategy.
If AI can free up time, use that time wisely to debate the fundamental strategic questions that AI can't solve.
These are unique to the context in which you operate, your vision, values and purpose:
Where do we play? How do we win?
How do we harness our unique capabilities, assets, and resources?
How do we create distinctive value?
How do we design differentiated customer experiences?
Who are we designing for?
How do we empathise with their needs at the key moments that matter?
Do our people have the skills to translate data into actionable insights?
AI could be better. How do we spot the wrong answers from AI and learn quickly?
Asking the right questions will decide where and how small-scale pilot experiments with AI can complement other methods, such as human-centred design and design research.
Consider AI ethics early
While AI has enormous potential to facilitate invention, use it responsibly. Partner with your IT, HR and Legal teams to select commercially safe methods, mitigate risk and empower people. You may have to develop proprietary data sets to protect your data and IP. Pay attention to evolving regulations. Critically, ensure you don't mistakenly make IP public or infringe copyright.
AI has its limits, but it can amplify human creativity
AI can't replicate human experiences, show empathy, or demonstrate nuanced, deep expert knowledge.
But it can support your creative endeavours.
Let's look at some examples.
In the early phase of an innovation project, you need to challenge the status quo. Studies show that ChatGPT can inspire associations between disparate concepts that challenge fixed thinking.
AI design tools make it easier to visualise ideas and facilitate storytelling. This can prompt conversations about an idea's value with users and stakeholders. It fosters experimentation and speeds up concept optimisation.
Autodesk design software—used by architects, engineers, and product designers—has AI functionality that performs a variety of predictive analyses to enable intelligent design decisions. This pushes the boundaries of what is possible, such as optimising designs for manufacturing and cost earlier in the innovation journey, saving time, and accelerating viable solutions.
Empower human creativity
Think of AI as another innovation tool. It will complement human ingenuity.
These tools will free up time, amplify our innate human creativity and help us make smarter decisions.
But as you rush to join the AI race, furnish people with critical thinking skills to maximise the value of these tools to extend people's creativity.
That way, you can be confident you can answer the question: are we solving the right problem in the right way?
If you need help to equip your people with the critical thinking and creative problem solving skills to boost your innovation culture, give us a shout. We'd love to help!