Where AI Shines in Innovation
At ITG we help clients fill product pipelines, find the next exciting product, and craft compelling messaging that helps consumers understand how these products will change their day. We play in a specific spot in their innovation process, the front end where exploration and inspiration are key.
Enter AI. Everyone is talking about it and everyone seems to be using it in some way or another. At ITG we have been running experiments to see how it could fit in with what we do and improve the outcomes for our clients; here is what we have seen.
The place where we have seen the biggest impact with AI tools is in the process after an ideation where we have to start selecting, drafting, and honing the ideas our clients are going to put into testing or production. Traditionally, this is the place where the energy and momentum start to stall. We just finished a fun and inspiring day of ideation with our excellent Creative Consumers® associates (CCs), and now we have to go through all the brilliant ideas and figure out which ones we are going to pursue. This process requires reviewing lots of messy qualitative data and drafting up more detailed concept outlines for the team to consider. Here is where today’s AI tools start to shine.
Concept Outline Drafting
A key part of our process is highlighting ideas that individual client team members are passionate about. Following the ideation, we have each team member write 2-4 concept outlines for their favorite ideas. We provide a simple template and access to all the output from ideation. This is where the blank page anxiety rears its head, and our AI concept assistant comes to the rescue.
Because our AI assistant is equipped with the generous output from our CCs’ homework assignment (4 hours of work per consumer) and prompted to follow ITG’s proven concept writing style, this assistant helps our clients draft outlines that capture their vision in the voice of their consumer in a matter of minutes.
Our tool is unique in that it leverages specific content generated for the project by our Creative Consumers® associates. That said most of the AI tools available can be an asset when you are at this point in your innovation effort. Writing well can be difficult and drafting concepts that will be judged by your colleagues can be intimidating. A little help from AI can make drafting feel like progress and help you crystalize ideas, benefits, and descriptive language.
Content Organization and Recall
We generate A LOT of qualitative content in each of our projects. The CC homework generally comes in at around 300-400 long form submissions, a mix of insights, wishes, and creative narrative. Ideation sessions generate an average of 400 new product, service, or messaging possibilities. The voting and outlining exercises add another layer of content that introduces up to 100 items for the team to consider. While our final output is most often 10-15 test ready concepts or 30-50 idea statements, all of the information gathered during the work is valuable. AI tools are really good at reading and they can save you and your team serious time when it comes to organization and recall. Some example use cases we have come across:
Finding consumer quotes that support a concept or finding.
Organizing ideas or concepts into thematic buckets.
Drafting alternate language based for concepts based on consumer input.
Pulling together content for a summary when socializing the work with team members who did not attend.
This all comes with the usual caveat about hallucinations. AIs are getting better at precise recall, but they sometimes still make stuff up. Our advice is to hit a quick ctrl-F on any quotes or specific language in the source documents to make sure you are presenting content that actually exists.
A Note on Using AI in Ideation
Our process brings our clients together with their consumers face to face, in person and online. For these types of ideations, we have found AI tools to be a fun and inspiring way to generate stimuli. Image generators like MidJourney and ChatGPT can produce thought-provoking imagery. Since most people are pretty crappy at drawing, these tools can help everyone in the room bring a vision to life and use it to spark thinking. The language models are also great at producing interesting narratives that participants can use to help add dimension to their own personal experience, inspiring new ideas. These AI generated artifacts are a nice addition to many creative exercises.
Where we have found AI less useful is in specific idea generation. Not because these bots lack the ability to churn out lots and lots of ideas, but because of what the demands of the interface do to the dynamic in the room. We have observed that when people start using an AI chat to generate ideas, they stop talking to each other as much, they spend more time looking at the screen, and they are less likely to let potentially fruitful conversations develop on their own. The tool becomes an answer machine and the ideation narrows and loses some steam.
We have designed our process to prioritize human interaction and human connection. This is where the magic happens and new, exciting ideas pop into existence. Our clients are experts on their products, and our consumers are thoughtful and creative experts in their experience. When these two groups have the opportunity to come together, the results are astounding. The less time they can spend looking at the same screen they look at everyday, the more breakthrough the ideas will be.
In conclusion, our experience with AI in our specific innovation niche is that it lets you soar with your strengths rather than replacing your role. Today’s AI assistants can be powerful tools that help you maintain momentum by providing you with a boost during the doldrums of the innovation process.