Inspirational stimuli to support creative ideation for the design of artificial intelligence-powered products

<p dir="ltr">Artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to revolutionize product design, and designers need to know how to best leverage its capabilities. Based on the concept–knowledge (C-K) theory, a set of inspirational stimuli (IS) for the design of AI-powered products (ISfAI) has been developed to contribute to the conceptual design stage. We extracted 40 ISs from 1755 granted AI patents using a five-step process and validated their feasibility through a controlled experiment using three design aids: brainstorming, ISfAI sheet, and ISfAI cards. Results suggest that the ISfAI cards can serve as a creative tool to enabling practitioners to generate a greater range of high-quality AI-powered ideas, particularly in terms of novelty, creativity, elaboration, and flexibility. This study has practical implications for developing AI-powered products and services.