Master ideation with generative AI

Are you staring at a blank page and quickly need 30 good ideas for your challenge?

Instead of just asking ChatGPT to spit out ideas for you, there are some principles you can apply to tap into the real power of generative AI for ideation.

Here's how to use generative AI effectively for brainstorming ideas.

1. Start with a clear prompt with context and constraints

"Give me 20 ideas for launching a sustainable shoe on a tight budget to millennials in New York" is an example of a solid prompt. You could give ChatGPT or similar tools more context, but this level of detail is usually a good starting point. You can always narrow the ideation further. If you’re too narrow with your brief, you’ll risk the AI feeding back some of your thinking.

The clearer your challenge is, the better results you'll likely get from a generative AI. It's always helpful to take a design thinking approach and start ideation based on real uncovered challenges people have.

A clear prompt with some context and constraints

2. Ask for more or different ideas

If the ideas generated by ChatGPT are in the ballpark but not quite there, you can always ask it to go again. "Give me 20 more". Acting like a drill sergeant might initially feel weird, but the tool won't mind (hopefully).

Sometimes the ideas need to be revised. You can continuously refine your ideation and provide ChatGPT with better context - for example, "give me ideas better suited for a business audience” or “make the ideas easier to execute”.

I refined the ideas ChatGPT gave me to make them easier to execute.

3. Use a specific brainstorming method

Methods like the "Six Thinking Hats" or SCAMPER can sometimes help humans think of different angles to a problem.

The same goes for generative AI, and you can use them as a guide asking the tool to "give me ideas on X using the Six Thinking Hats." These different frameworks can produce novel ideas and help you expand your thinking on a topic.

I continued my ideation on launching a sustainable shoe brand by asking ChatGPT to use the “Six Thinking Hats” method. It opened up new perspectives on the challenge that I had missed.

4. Use an image generator for a mood board

If you're ideating something with a visual element, you can jump on tools like Midjourney for inspiration. Let's say we're working on a project for a new office space; you can ask a tool like Midjourney to "/imagine a hand-drawn architectural sketch of a well light Nordic style office space with plenty of natural lights, friendly atmosphere, cozy workspaces, and plants."

In addition to single images, you can ask tools like Midjourney to create an entire mood board for your ideation.

Visual inspiration for the design of a Nordic style office space from AI tool Midjourney.

5. Request analogies

"Give me ten ways we could use methods from the gaming industry to launch a new sustainable shoe brand" is an example of using an analogy from a different space to ideate in another.

It's often a fruitful technique for producing novel ideas in our human brains, and the same is true for generative AI. Using analogies can help you push through the first obvious ideas humans or AI’s would come up with.

6. Prioritize ideas with AI

Working with my consulting clients, we often prioritize ideas at the end of an ideation workshop.

Guess what? Generative AI can help with this too. Pulling from its vast understanding of the world, it can help you prioritize ideas based on the criteria you feed it. It can even give them a score on any scale you want and organize the results in a table.

Be careful, though; tools like ChatGPT are experts at making up stuff when they don't have the information. So make sure to give it any relevant context that it can't find from public sources.

That's it. These were six ways to use generative AI and tools like ChatGPT for brainstorming. Some of the things in this article were, you guessed it, ideas that the AI provided. Ultimately, it was a collaborative effort with AI amplifying what I wanted to achieve.

That's the most significant promise of AI for generating ideas.