Generative AI could boost creativity, but only for some workers
Executive Take
Blanket AI rollouts without training on how to question and refine outputs will produce uneven creative gains, so the ROI case for generative AI tools should include a metacognition or prompt-reflection training line item, not just licenses.
Executive Summary
A field experiment of 250 employees published in the Journal of Applied Psychology found that ChatGPT use boosted creativity ratings only among workers with strong "metacognitive skills" the ability to assess knowledge gaps, track progress, and refine prompts. MIT Sloan's Jackson Lu says organizations should pair AI rollout with metacognition training.
Why It Matters
HR and learning leaders should care because this reframes AI upskilling as a thinking-skills problem, not just a tool-adoption problem training budgets aimed only at prompt engineering syntax will miss the actual lever driving creative performance.