The trisociation method can be used as an AI-supported creativity tool for idea generation.
Read our California Management Review (CMR) Insight on Trisociation.
The generation of creative ideas (i.e., novel and useful ideas) is a critical foundation for the innovation management process (Cummings & Oldham, 1997; O’Reilly & Binns, 2019). In our article in the July/August 2023 issue of Harvard Business Review magazine titled “How Generative AI Can Augment Human Creativity,” we wrote about the transformative role AI can play in democratizing innovation by aiding the generation of divergent ideas for business applications. One technique we presented was trisociation, a then-little-known creativity technique that leverages AI to combine three disparate concepts into a novel, coherent idea.
Using AI-powered trisociation, we combined the concepts of an elephant, a butterfly, and various product categories to produce appealing designs for candies and chairs. We also demonstrated how trisociation can be effective for textual descriptions and visual depictions of creative ideas.
Since our article’s publication, there has been substantial interest in AI-enabled creative thinking in organizations looking to boost their creativity. Organizations like SAP are adopting the article’s principles to guide AI-supported idea generation, and leading academic institutions, such as UC Berkeley, are teaching these principles in their executive education programs.
Specifically, several organizations – including marketing research companies and consulting firms – are experimenting with trisociation as a tool for AI-augmented idea generation. The Paris-based multinational market research company Ipsos has integrated trisociation as a feature in its Four.AI workshops alongside traditional creativity methods such as SCAMPER and questioning assumptions. The German software and consulting firm HYPE Innovation has proposed using trisociation to develop compelling idea campaigns and slogans.
With the rising interest in AI-enabled ideation, and specifically, the method of trisociation, this article aims to provide a set of guidelines to support individuals and teams in using trisociation for high-quality idea generation.
The insights we share stem from our extensive 22-month exploration of the topic and our experience teaching AI-enabled idea generation and trisociation at more than 10 organizations across Asia and North America, including both businesses and universities. Trisociation can generate diverse creative outputs– such as haikus and children’s stories (Eapen, 2023). This piece focuses specifically on its business applications, such as new venture concept development, catchy visual advertising, and product ideation.
Getting started with using trisociation using AI to spark novel ideas is easy. It begins by simply prompting a large language model (LLM) like OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Anthropic’s Claude to generate an idea from three given concepts. However, achieving meaningful, high-quality outputs often depends on carefully selecting those initial concepts. The CMR Insights article aims to illuminate these nuances and offer guidance on using AI-driven trisociation to generate ideas that are both novel and useful