Better Ideas by Taking Turns with AI

As AI becomes more integral to our work and lives, learning how to collaborate effectively with these tools is increasingly important. Yet, there’s still a fair amount of confusion. Some people, sometimes unconsciously, treat AI as a mere content-generating machine, expecting it to drive the reasoning while they sit back and watch. This passive approach can undermine creativity and critical thinking.

Interestingly, this phenomenon isn’t entirely new. We’ve all been in meetings or workshops where a few confident individuals dominate the conversation—sometimes management consultants, sometimes enthusiastic tech folks—leaving everyone else hesitant to contribute. When certain voices overshadow the group, creativity can suffer.

In this short essay, I will focus on a simple, yet not trivial, behavior change. (If you’re interested more broadly in refining your ideation workflows or exploring how to integrate AI into your problem-solving and ideation processes, you should also look at the essays here (overall flows, AI-augmented), or here (skills that humans need to learn to get more out of AI) among others.)

A proven method to counter this dominance in brainstorming sessions or design-thinking workshops is “brainwriting.” Before anyone speaks, participants take a moment to jot down their ideas. This levels the playing field, encouraging contributions from those who might be more reserved or easily distracted by louder voices. Brainwriting ensures everyone’s input is captured and no single perspective dominates too soon.

Working alongside AI can feel like adding another very smart, and somewhat imposing, member to the team.

Working alongside AI can feel like adding another very smart, and somewhat imposing, member to the team. As in a typical group setting, managing how (and when) ideas are introduced and built upon is essential. One effective strategy is to document your own thoughts first—maybe even have the AI ask clarifying questions—before letting the AI propose solutions. This prevents overreliance on AI-generated content and keeps humans in the driver’s seat of creativity.

Imagine a problem-solving workflow like this:

1. Human Input: You begin by outlining your ideas, questions, or goals. This can be done individually, but it is better as a group, with each person writing first.

2. AI Input: Then (or in parallel), you ask the AI (or multiple AI systems with different knowledge bases) for its perspective.

3. Filtering & Clustering: The AI can help filter and cluster ideas—both yours and its own—into coherent themes.

4. Human Review, Iteration & Synthesis: You and your human colleagues iterate, refine, and build on these combined ideas, integrating your professional judgment and creativity, and potentially using AI to identify improvements or provide further inspiration.

The chart below represents this flow schematically.

This process is rarely strictly linear; you might loop back to the AI after additional insights emerge. Also, in some scenarios, it might make sense for the AI to offer an initial fact base—like “pre-reads” that help everyone on the team start with the same information. This may be particularly helpful when discovering poorly understood problems.

Maintaining a sense of control and ownership over the flow is crucial for better outcomes, preserving morale and motivation, and keeping crucial parts of the human brain activated.

Either way, maintaining a sense of control and ownership over the flow is crucial for better outcomes, preserving morale and motivation, and keeping crucial parts of the human brain activated.

Ultimately, collaborating with AI should feel like working with any other skilled teammate: you give input, receive input, and find synergy by taking turns. We must develop this habit as a behavior change—actively shaping the conversation and not just reacting to AI suggestions.

If done right, augmenting our intelligence with AI can spark innovative solutions that neither humans nor AI can reach alone. If done wrong, we might end up with lots of boring ideas, and our own ability to think creatively might suffer. This is not a philosophical choice; it is about applying the right management practices to the new world of work.

This essay is part of a series on AI-augmented Collective Intelligence and the organizational, process, and skill infrastructure design that delivers the best performance for today's organizations. More here. Get in touch if you want these capabilities to augment your organization's collective intelligence.