MIT Sloan Management Review Article on When Generative AI Meets Product Development

As enterprises experiment with generative AI use cases, one promising area is emerging: incorporating image- and text-generation tools in the product development process. Innovation groups are using generative AI to enhance ideation and creativity, gain market and customer insights, and add user-friendly interfaces to sophisticated systems.

In our research in the field and dozens of interviews with managers, we have seen how GenAI can be a catalyst for transforming traditional innovation workflows. The use cases described below offer insights into three ways companies can navigate the integration of these technologies to increase the productivity of their innovation teams.

About the Author

Tucker J. Marion is an associate professor of innovation management and engineering at Northeastern University. Mahdi Srour is an AI and innovation researcher at Northeastern University and MIT. Frank Piller is a professor of innovation management at RWTH Aachen University in Germany. Author Frank Piller has consulted with Siemens in the past. The National Science Foundation sponsored part of this research (grant no. 2050052).

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