EFFECTS OF USING GENERATIVE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE COLLABORATION DURING IDEA GENERATION AND EVALUATION

Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) is increasingly integrated into creative work, yet its effects across the creative process remain unclear. Creativity involves generating ideas that are both novel and useful (Runco & Jaeger, 2012), and emerging research suggests that GenAI may augment aspects of creative cognition, particularly idea generation (Koivisto & Grassini, 2023; Medeiros et al., 2025). The present study examined how GenAI use influences idea generation and idea evaluation in a sample of 407 undergraduate participants. Participants completed a restaurant conceptualization task under varying GenAI conditions; due to heterogeneous engagement, participants were reclassified into behaviorally derived groups (no AI, AI-generated, augmented, and prompt engineering). Results indicated that GenAI use significantly improved idea generation outcomes, with AI-generated use increasing fluency while prompt engineering and augmented use were associated with higher idea quality. Prompt engineering and augmented use also predicted greater originality. Similarly, AI use significantly enhances idea evaluation quality, and originality. These findings suggest that GenAI enhances early-stage creative processes, but its effectiveness likely depends on how individuals engage with the tool, with structured, metacognitive interaction (i.e., prompt engineering) yielding the strongest benefits.