The Creativity Crisis: How AI is Revolutionizing the Hunt for the Next Big Idea

In today’s blazing-fast marketplace, companies are hitting a wall when it comes to innovation. As HBR noted, a 2017 McKinsey Global Innovation Survey highlighted 84% of executives agree innovation is important to their growth strategy, yet only 6% are satisfied with their company’s innovation performance.

Meanwhile the pace of play is only accelerating. Innosight reported in 2021, that the lifespan of an average S&P 500 company has been steadily declining from 30-35 years in the 1970’s, to as few as 15 years by the end of the 2020’s.

Rising interest rates are also raising the stakes. A 2023 report from National Bureau of Economic Research analyzed economic data from1969 to 2007, revealing a clear pattern: every 1% rate increase led to a 3% decline in R&D spending, a 25% decrease in venture capital investment, and a 9% decline in patent filings. In other words, it’s never been more important for companies to truly do more with less.

I need 4,000 ideas, fast…

A friend of mine who led innovation teams at Nike once said to me: it takes 4,000 good ideas to get to the next great shoe. That’s quite the pipeline of ideas to fill on a regular basis. Yet, there's a big hurdle: a growing gap in creative talent, and a huge increase in creative workload. MarketingDive reported in 2020 that 82% of in-house creative teams are experiencing increased workload, with 62% indicating that managing workflow is a key challenge, and 52% noting that prioritizing projects is a major obstacle.

This challenge is magnified by the swift pace of technology advancements: global competition endlessly raises the bar on efficiency, and financial markets create relentless pressure for companies to turn a profit faster. It becomes even more important to find those 4,000 good ideas quickly.

It’s time for a new approach

The traditional model of relying on a small group of professionally-trained creatives and innovators is starting to show its age. It's a bit like trying to fill an ocean with a bucket; these teams are overworked and can’t possibly keep up with the demand for new ideas. Companies are starting to see the need to cast a wider net for early-stage ideas – one that captures the collective intelligence and creative potential of their entire workforce, not just the select few. 

Enter a new approach: inclusive innovation fueled by AI. It’s not just about tapping the speed of AI to help individuals get to raw ideas faster. It’s about using social psychology and behavior science to reimagine group dynamics and unlock the creative power within teams of introverts, analyticals and people with neurodiversity.  People who work in other roles outside of the “innovation team” because they aren’t expressive or extroverted.  People who have learned to believe they are not creative by nature. Whether they’ve been told this by others, or simply were never taught the skills to capture and articulate creative concepts, these folks represent an untapped pipeline for innovative ideas.

 Innovating without fear

An essential ingredient is a supportive, psychologically safe, non-hierarchical group ideation environment where feedback is truly constructive, and creative risk-taking is positively reinforced. Studies have shown that fostering a workplace culture that affirms and reinforces creative risk-taking can increase employee engagement and, in turn, innovation. For instance, a 2018 Gallup study found that highly engaged business units result in 4x stronger earnings per share, and 21% greater profitability. 

This points to making the innovation process more inclusive, fearless and fun for everyone in the org. By rewriting group social norms, providing gamified learning experiences, and centering ideation around play, companies can demystify creativity for non-practitioners. It’s about distilling the fearsome process of innovation into more manageable pieces, and retraining the mind to look at failure as a wonderful thing.  It’s about catering to all learning and communication styles, allowing anyone to imagine and share their good, bad and ugly ideas without fear of judgment.

Psychological safety can significantly enhance creative output. A thoughtful 2016 piece in The New York Times Magazine highlights the impacts of psychological safety on team performance, uncovered in large scale experiments conducted at Google.  The piece also notes how challenging it is to achieve such an environment. Organizations don’t often invest nearly as much on training for so-called “soft skills,” as they do on teaching functional skills. The rules are unwritten, the expectations are nebulous, and failure on EQ dimensions can lead to harsh judgment. We need to intentionally create environments that teach these skills: not through lecture, but through experiential learning. 

Speaking the language of creativity 

AI can support experiential soft-skills training, while also helping create more fluency in the language of creativity.  A story I love to tell, is when my wife said one Saturday morning that she loves a particular band from the late 1990’s, but she doesn’t have the level of sophistication to tell me (a music major) why.  “Grab your computer,” I said. “Ask ChatGPT – ‘what are the top 5 musical characteristics of the band.’”  Within minutes, we were having a meaningful conversation about chord structure, vocal harmony, time signatures, and polyrhythms.  Apply this same principle to the language of creativity—enabling a non-practitioner to meaningfully discuss concepts like color theory, typography, imagery.  AI can give people new vocabulary in seconds, rapidly leveling the playing field between “creatives” and “non-creatives.”

Innovation is our purpose - all of us

Using AI in a human-centered way can truly democratize innovation, making it the shared mission of many, rather than the sole responsibility of an overburdened few. Imagine a workplace where group ideation sessions are less brain-stormy with all the wind and choppy water; where teams flow through smooth seas, cruising at incredible speed.

The future of innovation lies in breaking down the silos between “the creatives” and “the non-creatives,” and harnessing the collective intelligence of the entire organization. By making the process more inclusive with AI and behavior science, companies can tap a deep well, filling the pipeline with ideas the creatively-trained innovators can run with. Rethinking who can be considered an innovator doesn't just solve the creative talent gap; it sets the stage for a more engaged and resilient workforce equipped to face the challenges of tomorrow.