Why scalable AI ideation fails, and how to fix it.
AI innovation has a motivation problem. Generating an idea with AI is only the first leg of a relay race that requires refinement, gathering support, and persistence when problems arise. But if an employee feels no psychological ownership over an idea, no sense that an idea is meaningfully theirs, who will step up to push it through the organizational pipeline towards successful implementation? That’s the challenge explored in the new working paper “Ideas Are a Dime a Dozen with GenAI, but Who Will Champion Them? Gaining and Losing Idea Ownership in Human-AI Knowledge Work,” co-authored by HBS AI Institute chair and co-founder Karim R. Lakhani. The researchers ran a field experiment inside H&M Group to find out what happens when GenAI enters the ideation process, and how organizations can preserve the human ownership that turns AI-assisted concepts into ideas employees are willing to champion.
Why This Matters
This research suggests that even a brief period of independent thinking at the outset of ideation can be valuable when an idea will later depend on human advocacy. That doesn’t mean that every task or brainstorm needs a protected human-only opening. The next challenge for leaders may be to distinguish between workflows optimized for producing possibilities and those that must also produce ownership, and where in their organizations human ownership materially affects the outcome. By managing that balance, companies can harness the speed of AI without sacrificing the human passion required to bring bold strategic visions to life.
Link to the HBS AI Institute Insight Article
Sign up for our newsletter to stay up to date with HBS AI Institute news and research