AI-enhanced collaboration & brainstorming

How is AI being applied to the human pursuit of brainstorming? Surely Artificial Intelligence, combined with a little of the old fashioned kind of intelligence can get better results, faster?  Putting this theory to the test is long-time tech development platform, Figma (figma.com).  If you're not familiar with Figma, it's a digital platform that supports the team-based design and development of digital solutions such as websites and mobile apps.  The idea being that a team, all looking at the same screen or page, can ask each other questions, ideate, assess and improve on projects in development, in real time.

The latest iteration of Figma includes their AI product, FigJam. While most of us are not hardcore website or app developers, the principles used by FigJam would be the same for any form of team brainstorm or work session, as you will see.

At its simplest, Figma allows for ideation against an open question or challenge.  The system also allows for simple steps like voting (who hasn't done that at the end of a brainstorm?) -- either by applying a "thumbs up" to an idea or by an actual team vote which can be done anonymously, secret ballot, or open format.  A nice additional feature is the Polaroid camera with which team-members can add their picture to the team roster.

Where the AI kicks in is with the Jambot tool available throughout. The tool features the following options at any stage of a work session:

Ideate - creates a series of AI-generated ideas on the topic
Quick Question - Uses AI to answer questions that come up along the way
Teach me about this - Takes the answer further with an info deep dive
Give Me - Suggests various dimensions on the previous item that can be considered
Rabbit Hole - Provides an alternative route
Similar Stuff - variations on the theme
Summarize - typical AI shortened version
Rewrite This... - Uses AI grammar, and writing capabilities
Turn this into a... A little whimsey from Figma here, with a song, joke, story, poem or haiku the options!
Code this up... - for the more technical it turns inputs into potential code
Custom... - a deeper technical route

While Figma is primarily for technical people developing code and similar, I took it for a more general brainstorm spin, and was pleasantly surprised by where it could take me.  Certainly enough to see the real potential for AI-enhanced brainstorming.  I took the perspective of a CPG brand thinking about a new product. And at the most basic level, Jambot can do a great brain-dump of ideas, much as you might get from ChatGPT, just in a more dedicated tool.  Then the different ways to ask questions, seek additional information, or turn the outputs into other formats was fascinating.  Here I asked Jambot to consider a new line of pasta sauces, then looked for variations, ingredients, recipes and more.

So, it's not hard to imagine the broad application of AI to general brainstorms.  If nothing else, having ChatGPT-4 open and ready to prompt ideas would be a good start.