Most people use AI like a fancy search engine, typing a quick question and hoping for magic. However, Jeremy Utley, who teaches AI and creativity at Stanford University, has discovered something remarkable. After working with over a million students and advising companies like Microsoft and Hyatt, he’s found that the most innovative people treat AI completely differently. They don’t just use AI—they collaborate with it.
The difference isn’t in the technology itself. It’s in how you approach it. Utley’s research at Stanford’s famous d.school shows that small changes in how you work with AI can lead to breakthrough innovations. These seven strategies, tested with real organizations and proven to work, will transform how you think, create, and solve problems. The best part? You can start using them today, even if you’ve never considered yourself particularly creative.
1. Master “Ideaflow” – The Only Metric That Matters
Here’s a surprising fact: generating thousands of ideas is the best way to get one great idea. Utley calls this “ideaflow”—the number of ideas you can produce in a set amount of time. Research shows that Nobel Prize winners, breakthrough inventors, and innovative companies all share one trait: they generate massive numbers of ideas before finding the perfect one. James Dyson made over 5,000 prototypes before creating his revolutionary vacuum cleaner.
AI changes everything about idea flow. Instead of struggling to develop your third or fourth idea, you can easily generate hundreds of options. The key is asking for multiple solutions rather than seeking one “right” answer. Try saying, “Give me 15 different ways to solve this problem” instead of “What’s the best solution?” Remember what one smart seventh-grader said about creativity: “Creativity is doing more than the first thing you think of.” AI helps you get past that first obvious idea to find something truly innovative.
2. Treat AI as a Teammate, Not a Tool
The biggest mistake people make with AI is treating it like software instead of a colleague. Imagine walking up to a new coworker and saying, “Make a social media strategy now.” You’d never do that to a human, yet that’s precisely how most people talk to AI. The most successful AI users have discovered something simple but powerful: when you treat AI like a teammate, it performs like one.
Start by giving your AI assistants human names and specific roles. Instead of using “ChatGPT,” try calling it “Sarah the Strategist” or “Mike the Marketing Expert.” Tell the AI what kind of teammate you need: “You’re an experienced project manager who’s helped teams launch dozens of successful products.” Provide context just like you would to any new team member. This slight shift changes everything about the quality of responses you’ll receive.
3. Develop “Conversational AI Fluency”
Most people fail with AI because they still think it’s Google. They type a few words, hit enter, and expect perfect results. But AI works best through conversation and back-and-forth dialogue, where you refine ideas. The problem is that most of us have been trained by search engines to think in keywords rather than conversations.
Becoming fluent with AI takes about 10 hours of practice, but you can start immediately. Spend 10-15 minutes each day having honest conversations with AI about your work challenges. Ask follow-up questions. Request clarification. Challenge the AI’s suggestions and ask for alternatives. Try this: after AI gives you an answer, ask it to rate its response from 1-100 and explain what could be better. Then ask it to improve the answer based on its feedback.
4. Create Space for AI Experimentation
Innovation requires time to play, fail, and discover unexpected connections. The most successful organizations create dedicated time for AI experimentation, when people can explore without pressure to produce immediate results. This isn’t wasted time; investment time pays enormous dividends later.
Block “AI exploration time” in your calendar, even if it’s just 30 minutes weekly. During this time, try using AI for tasks you’ve never considered before. Ask it to help with personal challenges, brainstorm wild ideas, or solve problems outside your normal expertise. Keep a simple log of what works and what doesn’t. These experiments often reveal breakthrough applications you never discovered through formal training or planned projects.
5. Use AI to Overcome Creative Thinking Traps
Our brains are wired to find patterns and stick with familiar solutions. This usually helps us, but it becomes a creativity killer when we need breakthrough thinking. AI excels at helping you escape these mental traps because it doesn’t have the same cognitive biases that limit human thinking.
Use AI as your creativity coach. Ask it to challenge your assumptions about a problem. Request ideas from entirely different industries or perspectives. Say, “How would a marine biologist approach this marketing challenge?” or “What would someone from the 1800s think about this problem?” AI can generate analogies, metaphors, and connections your brain might never make. The key is deliberately asking for approaches that feel uncomfortable or unfamiliar.
6. Build Your Daily AI Creative Practice
Innovation isn’t something that happens during special brainstorming sessions or annual retreats. It’s a daily practice, like physical exercise or learning a musical instrument. The most creative people build small, consistent habits that compound over time. AI makes this easier than ever before.
Start by using AI for just 15 minutes each morning to tackle one small challenge from your work or personal life. Maybe it’s drafting better emails, planning your day more effectively, or brainstorming solutions to an ongoing problem. Rotate AI through different roles: researcher, editor, strategist, coach, or creative partner. As AI technology evolves rapidly, revisit old ideas that didn’t work before—they might be perfect solutions now.
7. Scale AI Innovation Across Your Organization
Individual AI skills are powerful, but organizational AI fluency creates competitive advantages. Companies winning with AI aren’t just training people to use tools—they’re teaching teams how to collaborate with AI effectively. This requires systematic approaches and cultural changes, not just technology rollouts.
Create “AI champions” in different departments who can share successful applications and help others overcome obstacles. Establish safe spaces where people can share their AI successes and failures without judgment. Consider setting up team challenges where groups compete to find the most innovative AI applications for real business problems. The goal isn’t just adoption—it’s transformation of how your entire organization thinks and works.
Case Study: How Leanne Transformed Her Marketing Agency
Leanne runs a small marketing agency that struggles to keep up with client demands. Her team of five is constantly overwhelmed, working late nights to deliver creative campaigns. Everything changes when she discovers Jeremy Utley’s AI strategies and decides to implement them systematically.
She introduced “ideaflow sessions,” where her team used AI to generate hundreds of campaign concepts before choosing the best ones. Instead of the usual brainstorming meetings that produced maybe 10-15 ideas, they suddenly generated 50-100 options for each client project. Leanne also established “AI teammate Tuesdays,” where each team member had to complete one primary task using AI as a collaborative partner. They gave their AI assistants names like “Creative Carlos” and “Strategic Stella,” treating them like team members.
Within three months, Leanne’s agency had doubled their creative output while working fewer hours. They landed two major new clients, impressed by the volume and quality of innovative options. Most importantly, her team rediscovered their passion for creative work because AI handled the routine tasks, freeing them to focus on high-level strategy and creative direction. The agency’s success led to Leanne speaking at marketing conferences about AI collaboration, positioning her as an industry thought leader.
Key Takeaways
- Ideaflow—the number of ideas generated over time—is the most critical creativity metric for individuals and organizations.
- Treat AI as a collaborative teammate rather than a tool by providing context, asking follow-up questions, and engaging in dialogue.
- Develop conversational AI fluency through 10-15 minute practice sessions focused on real-world challenges.
- Create dedicated time for AI experimentation without pressure for immediate results or perfect outcomes.
- Use AI to overcome cognitive biases and thinking traps by requesting perspectives from different industries or viewpoints.
- Build daily AI creative practices that integrate seamlessly into existing workflows and routines.
- Scale AI innovation organizationally by training teams in collaboration rather than just tool usage.
- Give AI assistants human names and specific roles to improve interaction quality and response relevance naturally.
- Ask AI to evaluate and improve its responses to achieve higher-quality outputs through iterative refinement.
- Focus on generating volume first—breakthrough innovations emerge from exploring many options rather than perfecting a few ideas.
Conclusion
The future belongs to people and organizations that learn to collaborate effectively with AI, not just use it as an advanced search engine. Jeremy Utley’s research at Stanford demonstrates that creativity isn’t a rare gift—it’s a skill anyone can develop through the proper practices and tools. AI amplifies human creativity rather than replacing it, but only when we approach it with the right mindset and strategies.
These seven proven strategies provide a roadmap for transforming how you think, create, and innovate. The key is starting small with daily practice and gradually building more sophisticated AI collaboration skills. Whether you’re running a marketing agency like Leanne, leading a corporate team, or working as an individual contributor, these approaches will help you unlock creative potential you didn’t know you had. The companies and professionals who master AI collaboration today will have significant competitive advantages tomorrow, while those who treat it merely as a better search engine will be left behind.