GENERATIVE AI AS A COGNITIVE COLLABORATOR Enhancing Boundary Objects and Stakeholder Participation in Collaborative Prototyping

Abstract

The landscape of innovation has shifted towards open collaboration, meanwhile Artificial intelligence (AI) has had rapid surge in development. AI, more specifically, generative AI (GAI) has the potential to alter many aspects of current practices within open innovation including collaborative prototyping. Despite this promising potential there exists little understanding of how GAI can tackle the hurdles present in collaborative prototyping such as stakeholder participation, knowledge trans-fer and technical competence dependencies. This case study seeks to gain insight into the intersection of collaborative prototyping and GAI. This is achieved by exploring how GAI can bridge this gap by facilitating the creation and understanding of prototypes and surrounding boundary objects. By framing prototypes as a form of boundary objects and highlighting GAI's role in tacit and explicit knowledge transfer, the study offers both theoretical and practical insights into AI-enabled collaborative innovation. The analysis of GAI in collaborative settings revealed that it is increasingly seen as a cognitive collaborator, not just a tool. GAI was found to have the potential to enable broader participation by offering domain specific knowledge. GAI was also found to enable creation and interpretation of boundary objects furthering cognitive alignment during the prototyping process. This study also highlights potential risks with integrating GAI in the collaborative process related to data security and a lack of understanding regarding the GAIs output.