AI can improve idea quality while narrowing the field
A laboratory experiment found AI-assisted brainstormers produced higher-quality ideas, while independent participants generated greater quantity and variety; human collaboration improved originality and enjoyment.
AI enhances individual idea quality, shaped by social-motivational factors.
The study’s most useful tension: AI may help refine ideas, but active human collaboration keeps the field wider and more surprising.
The Story
This is a strong argument for separating divergent and convergent phases. AI assistance may help a designer make an idea more complete, but it can also pull the group towards familiar patterns too early.
A healthier workshop structure might begin with silent, human-only generation; bring in AI to stretch, combine, or interrogate the material; then return to a human group for selection and meaning-making.
That sequence protects the strange first thought—the one that often carries more identity than the immediately plausible answer. ([sciencedirect.com](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2949882126000538?utm_source=openai))
Studio Wensday Angle
Use AI after the first wave of human divergence, not before it.