The Rise of AI-Enabled New Product Ideation: End of Innovation Crowdsourcing?

Innovation crowdsourcing has long been a vital source of creativity for new product development. With the diverse perspectives of crowds, crowdsourced ideas have provided novel insights to firms in developing innovative new products. The emergence of generative AI, with its rapid advancement that approaches human creativity, casts doubt on the value proposition of traditional innovation crowdsourcing, prompting a reevaluation of how firms might source innovative ideas in this era of AI. This research aims to investigate the impact of generative AI on new product ideation and whether it can replace human crowdsourcing. By introducing the concept of AI-conceivability, the study analyzes the potential of AI-generated product features to create market value and how it compares with human-generated ideas. In light of the burgeoning growth of LLMs, this study provides a critical comparison of AI-enabled ideation and conventional crowdsourcing, highlighting the implications for future innovation strategies.