I'd love to echo Adam's thoughts here and add a few of my own:
TL;DR: AI will be a powerful tool in innovator's belts, but just one tool, and one that can't come at the expense of human intuition, leaps of creative bravery and being out in the real world, talking to real people.
Steve draws a parallel between product innovation and marketing stating that "today, every advertising dollar is tracked, attributed, and rigorously analyzed,” and raising the question “Why has this shift not yet infiltrated the world of new product innovation?”
While a pursuit of rigor is admirable, we must be conscious of the downsides. With advertising, our ability to track and be more efficient has come at the expense of effectiveness. Breakthrough creative campaigns are few and far between nowadays. See Peter Field's "Crisis of Creative Effectiveness," among other sources, for more.
I'd agree with Steve that AI and its ability to read "big social data" will be invaluable and far superior to some current methodologies. But we have to understand the limitations of this new approach as well. He states that with new tools, we can bridge the say-do gap — the disconnect between what consumers say and what they actually do — because researchers are “not in the room”. I’d say this is actually a false assumption. All you have to do is ask yourself if people’s online presences reflect their real lives to understand my reasoning.
In my mind, big social data through AI will provide us with a more powerful and more accurate version of today's current social listening tools. But can't replace human intuition and leaps of creative bravery. We still need to get in front of consumers or out into the real world, have real conversations and be able to read between the lines.
Tom Ajello™, Melissa Tischler, Mark Payne — curious to hear your thoughts
CPG innovation is broken. An 85% failure rate is unacceptable.
In my latest piece for Forbes I explore how CPG leaders are using AI to create more predictable, predictive innovation models.
Check it out!
https://lnkd.in/ebW8bPfG
![CPG Product Innovation Should Be A Science, Not An Art]()
CPG Product Innovation Should Be A Science, Not An Art
forbes.com
Founder serving founders @collective and @expa
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