How Generative AI Can Augment Human Creativity

Use it to promote divergent thinking.

by

and

Lokesh Venkataswamy

by

and

Lokesh Venkataswamy

From the Magazine (July–August 2023) · Long read

All images in this article were created using generative AI. These images were created using the prompts light bulb, flower, pastel, geometric shapes, simplicity, clean lines, and minimal still life. Midjourney

Summary.

There is tremendous apprehension about the potential of generative AI—technologies that can create new content such as text, images, and video—to replace people in many jobs. But one of the biggest opportunities generative AI offers is to augment human creativity and overcome the challenges of democratizing innovation.

In the past two decades, companies have used crowdsourcing and idea competitions to involve outsiders in the innovation process. But many businesses have struggled to capitalize on these contributions. They’ve lacked an efficient way to evaluate the ideas, for instance, or to synthesize different ideas.

Generative AI can help overcome those challenges, the authors say. It can supplement the creativity of employees and customers and help them produce and identify novel ideas—and improve the quality of raw ideas. Specifically, companies can use generative AI to promote divergent thinking, challenge expertise bias, assist in idea evaluation, support idea refinement, and facilitate collaboration among users.

Idea in Brief

The Problem

In the past two decades, companies’ efforts to involve outsiders in the process of coming up with new offerings have taken off. Crowdsourcing and idea competitions are two prime examples. But firms still struggle to make use of the plethora of ideas that are generated.

The Root Causes

A lack of an efficient way to evaluate the ideas, domain experts’ struggles in accepting novel ideas, the inability of contributors to provide details needed to make their ideas feasible, and the challenge of synthesizing different ideas are all factors.

The Solution

Generative AI can help overcome these challenges. It can augment the creativity of employees and customers and help them generate and identify novel ideas as well as improve the quality of raw ideas.

There is tremendous apprehension about the potential of generative AI—technologies that can create new content such as audio, text, images, and video—to replace people in many jobs. But one of the biggest opportunities generative AI offers to businesses and governments is to augment human creativity and overcome the challenges of democratizing innovation.

A version of this article appeared in the July–August 2023 issue of Harvard Business Review.

Tojin T. Eapen is a principal consultant at Innomantra and a senior fellow at the Conference Board.
Daniel J. Finkenstadt is a principal at Wolf Stake Consulting, a military officer, and a former assistant professor at the Naval Postgraduate School. He is the coauthor of the book Supply Chain Immunity (Springer 2022).
JF

Josh Folk is a cofounder and the president of enterprise solutions at IdeaScale, a cloud-based innovation-software platform.
LV

Lokesh Venkataswamy is the CEO and managing director of Innomantra, an innovation and intellectual-property consulting firm in Bengaluru, India.

How Generative AI Can Augment Human Creativity

Idea in Brief

The Problem

The Root Causes

The Solution

Partner Center

Explore HBR

HBR Store

About HBR

Manage My Account

Follow HBR