A pioneering research revealed in the Proceedings of the 27th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems. Researchers dove deep into a cutting-edge technology known as Conversational Swarm Intelligence (CSI). Conceptualized in 2023, CSI combines the principles of Artificial Swam Intelligence (ASI) with the unique affordances of large language models. This creative new reimagining of the traditional charrette is intended to help level up community brainstorming sessions to be more effective, productive and inclusive.
The experiment utilized two groups of 75 participants, each participating in a 30-minute brainstorming session. Each collective used both the CSI platform and a regular chat room for collaborative brainstorming sessions. It’s no surprise that participants reported transformative improvements to their lived experience. More than 80% reported feeling “more heard” in conversations that were built with CSI’s facilitation. The results do imply that this new technology can improve communication and collaboration between enterprise teams considerably.
Louis Rosenberg, Chief Scientist at Unanimous AI and co-author of the study, noted the transformative implications that CSI could have. “Last year we found that CSI enables large, networked groups to make significantly smarter decisions,” he stated. This study draws on earlier evidence that demonstrates the value of CSI to support collaborative decision-making.
Study Methodology and Results
With this in mind, the study’s design made participants complete two 12-minute Alternative Uses Tasks (AUT) as they tried to think of new ideas. While the first session took advantage of the familiar chat room style discussion format, the second session was hosted on the CSI platform. This cross-cutting approach enabled researchers to evaluate the variances in participant experiences and outcomes between the two modalities.
Findings showed that participants playing on the Thinkscape CSI platform showed a significant boost in collective intelligence. Beyond schools, groups using CSI achieved an impressive average effective IQ of 128. This high score ranks them in the 97th intelligence percentile of all groups, both racial or otherwise.
Christopher Dishop is a Post-Doctoral Fellow of Organizational Behavior and Theory at Carnegie Mellon’s Tepper School of Business. He co-authored the study and noted its significance for bigger entities. He remarked, “The average Fortune 1000 company has more than 30,000 employees, so the ability to engage large groups in real-time discussions, brainstorms, evaluations, debates, assessments, and prioritizations could be a powerful collaborative way to solve problems.”
Participant Feedback and Implications
Comments from participants highlighted the power of the CSI platform. Someone remarked how they felt “more heard” with the deliberations. They told us they developed a greater feeling of “ownership” and “buy-in” to the results generated using this approach. These feelings were much more acute than they had been during in-person speed friending.
What creators will find, researchers warned, is a more elevated sense of ownership that fosters greatly engaged, invested teams. They stated, “In this new research, we find that participants feel more buy-in and ownership in the outcomes. Taken together, these two studies suggest CSI could have a very positive impact on how enterprise teams collaborate in the future.”
The implications of these findings ring especially true in today’s corporate climate, where smart collaboration is a surefire recipe for innovation and success. The potential to harness AI-driven platforms such as CSI could fundamentally change the way teams think about problem-solving and project development.
Future Directions for Research
Though this study sees exciting findings, researchers are calling for more investigation into the potential of CSI. Anita Williams Woolley, a co-lead researcher of the study, said she was excited to pursue further research. “Future studies of CSI should test collaborative brainstorming and prioritization among significantly larger groups to validate use among hundreds or thousands of simultaneous participants,” she urged.
The exciting opportunities CSI brings to corporate settings are numerous as well. Generative artificial intelligence (Gen AI) is already changing the way we live and work in remarkable ways. As this research indicates, tools such as CSI can truly transform large-scale teamwork and collaboration.
