The Creative Team Member: A Study of the Influence of AI Integration Timing on Brainstorming and Ideation

The Effect of Artificial Intelligence Integration Timing on Group Brainstorming and Ideation in Undergraduate Students: A Randomized Controlled Trial

This study aims to examine how the timing of artificial intelligence (AI) integration during group brainstorming activities affects the creativity and ideation of participants. Undergraduate student participants will be randomly allocated into teams of four to complete a structured 12-minute brainstorming task. The study utilizes a three-group experimental design to compare three conditions: no AI access, AI access from the outset of the session, and AI access introduced halfway through the session. The standardized generative AI tool used is ChatGPT Pro. The creative output produced by each group will be evaluated by a panel of independent expert judges using the Consensual Assessment Technique (CAT).

Study Overview

• Status: Not yet recruiting
• Conditions: Creativity; Brainstorming; Ideation
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: Artificial Intelligence First (Early Integration); Behavioral: Artificial Intelligence Last (Late Integration)

Detailed Description

Artificial intelligence (AI) tools are increasingly used in academic and professional environments, yet little is known about how the timing of AI's introduction during a collaborative brainstorming process shapes the creativity of the ideas produced. While recent literature suggests that human-AI collaboration can increase the likelihood of successful idea generation when AI is present throughout an entire session, the specific effect of integration timing remains a gap in the literature. This study aims to provide early data on whether AI functions more effectively as an early collaborator, a later resource, or whether its absence supports more creative thinking.

The study recruits undergraduate students enrolled in a summer research program, who are then randomly assigned to teams of four using a digital randomizer. Over the course of nine sessions, these teams participate in structured, 12-minute collaborative brainstorming tasks focused on designing strategies to address common university student challenges. To mitigate the influence of individual baseline characteristics on the group output, participants are re-randomized into new teams for each separate session.

To standardize the technological intervention and eliminate technical confounders, the study utilizes ChatGPT Pro (GPT-4o architecture) on pre-set devices. At the conclusion of the timed task, a designated team scribe submits the group's collaboratively generated idea list and their selected best idea via a secure, digital case report form.

Following data collection, all session outputs are immediately de-identified and assigned neutral identifiers. A panel of independent expert judges, blinded to the condition assignments, evaluate the output of each group.

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Estimated): 16
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

• Study Contact: Name: Alexandra Leone, BSc; Phone Number: 44490 905-527-4322; Email: leonea5@mcmaster.ca
• Study Contact Backup: Name: Kaya Bhandari; Email: bhandk5@mcmaster.ca

Study Locations

• Canada
  • Ontario
    • Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, L8S 4L8
      • McMaster University
      • Contact: Kaya Bhandari; Email: bhandk5@mcmaster.ca
      • Contact: Alexandra Leone, BSc.; Phone Number: 44490 905-527-4322; Email: leonea5@mcmaster.ca
      • Sub-Investigator: Kaya Bhandari
      • Sub-Investigator: Alexandra Leone, BSc
      • Principal Investigator: Mohit Bhandari, MD, PhD, FRCSC

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: Child; Adult; Older Adult
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

Enrolled as an undergraduate student in the designated summer research program. Able to provide voluntary informed consent. Proficient in reading and communicating in English (required to engage with the scenarios and the artificial intelligence tool).

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Exclusion Criteria:

Not enrolled as an undergraduate student in the designated summer research program.

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Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Other
• Allocation: Randomized
• Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
• Masking: Single

Number of Arms

3

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
No Intervention: No Artificial Intelligence Tools (Control); Across nine separate sessions, teams of four participants will complete all nine distinct student-struggle scenarios (one scenario per 12-minute session). In each session, participants engage in a structured collaborative brainstorming task entirely without access to artificial intelligence tools for the full 12 minutes. At the conclusion of each session, the team must evaluate their generated list and select their single best idea to solve that specific scenario.
Experimental: Artificial Intelligence First (Early Integration); Across nine separate sessions, teams of four participants will complete all nine distinct student-struggle scenarios (one scenario per 12-minute session). In each session, at minute 0, participants input the scenario prompt into ChatGPT Pro (GPT-4o architecture). The team receives a single initial output of ideas and does not engage in further back-and-forth dialogue with the tool. Participants use this initial artificial intelligence response as a baseline to continue human brainstorming and ideation for the remainder of the 12 minutes, ultimately selecting and submitting their single best idea for that specific scenario.	Behavioral: Artificial Intelligence First (Early Integration); The introduction of ChatGPT Pro (GPT-4o architecture) at the beginning (minute 0) of a 12-minute group brainstorming session. A single prompt containing the scenario is submitted to generate an initial set of ideas, with no further back-and-forth dialogue permitted. This single artificial intelligence output serves as the baseline for the team's subsequent human ideation.
Experimental: Artificial Intelligence Last (Late Integration); Across nine separate sessions, teams of four participants will complete all nine distinct student-struggle scenarios (one scenario per 12-minute session). In each session, participants brainstorm independently without technology for the first 6 minutes. At minute 6, the team inputs the scenario prompt along with their already-generated human ideas into ChatGPT Pro (GPT-4o architecture). Receiving a single output with no further back-and-forth dialogue, the team uses the artificial intelligence response to continue ideating for the final 6 minutes, ultimately selecting and submitting their single best idea for that specific scenario.	Behavioral: Artificial Intelligence Last (Late Integration); The introduction of ChatGPT Pro (GPT-4o architecture) at the midpoint (minute 6) of a 12-minute group brainstorming session. A single prompt containing both the scenario and the team's already-generated human ideas is submitted, with no further back-and-forth dialogue permitted. This single artificial intelligence output is used to guide the team's human ideation for the remaining 6 minutes.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Creativity Score of the Selected Best Idea	The primary outcome is the mean expert creativity rating assigned to each team's top idea, across each of the 9 sessions, as assessed by independent judges using the Consensual Assessment Technique (CAT). Higher average scores denote a more creative output, while lower scores denote a less creative output.	Evaluated cross-sectionally upon the conclusion of each 12-minute session, across the 9 study sessions.

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Overall Creativity Score of Full Idea List	The collective creative quality of the entire list of ideas generated by the team during the session, evaluated by independent expert judges using the Consensual Assessment Technique (CAT).	Evaluated cross-sectionally upon the conclusion of each 12-minute session, across the 9 study sessions.
Number of Ideas Generated During the 12-Minute Session	The total number of ideas generated (fluency) will be reported with the explicit methodological limitation that AI generation speed inherently outpaces human typing speed. Fluency will be analysed purely observationally, as the 12-minute constraint does not control for the mechanical advantage of the AI tool.	Evaluated cross-sectionally upon the conclusion of each 12-minute session, across the 9 study sessions.
Qualitative Resemblance of the Team's Output to Typical AI-Generated Responses	This will be subjectively assessed by the expert judges on a 1-5 scale (anchored from 'strongly AI-typical' to 'strongly human'), independent of the CAT creativity evaluation.	Evaluated cross-sectionally upon the conclusion of each 12-minute session, across the 9 study sessions.

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: McMaster University
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Mohit Bhandari, MD, PhD, FRCSC, McMaster University

Publications and helpful links

General Publications

• Koo TK, Li MY. A Guideline of Selecting and Reporting Intraclass Correlation Coefficients for Reliability Research. J Chiropr Med. 2016 Jun;15(2):155-63. doi: 10.1016/j.jcm.2016.02.012. Epub 2016 Mar 31.
• Çelik, T. İ., & Akay, C. (2025). The Impact of Brainstorming Technique on Academic Achievement and Creative Thinking: A Meta-Analysis Study. Sage Open, 15(3). 62
• Muller, M., Houde, S., Gonzalez, G., Brimijoin, K., Ross, S. I., Silva Moran, D. A., & Weisz, J. D. (2024). Group brainstorming with an AI agent: Creating and selecting ideas. Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Computational Creativity (ICCC 2024). https://computationalcreativity.net/iccc24/papers/ICCC24_paper_18.pdf
• Amabile, Teresa. (1982). Social psychology of creativity: A consensual assessment technique. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 43. 997-1013. 10.1037/0022-3514.43.5.997
• Zhang C, Shao Y, Yuan Y, Shen W. Artificial Intelligence Reshapes Creativity: A Multidimensional Evaluation. Psych J. 2025 Dec;14(6):831-840. doi: 10.1002/pchj.70042. Epub 2025 Aug 5.
• Lee BC, Chung JJ. An empirical investigation of the impact of ChatGPT on creativity. Nat Hum Behav. 2024 Oct;8(10):1906-1914. doi: 10.1038/s41562-024-01953-1. Epub 2024 Aug 12.

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Estimated): July 20, 2026
• Primary Completion (Estimated): August 15, 2026
• Study Completion (Estimated): September 15, 2026

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: July 5, 2026
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: July 5, 2026
• First Posted (Actual): July 9, 2026

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): July 9, 2026
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: July 5, 2026
• Last Verified: July 1, 2026

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: Artificial Intelligence; Problem Solving; Creativity; Teamwork; Undergraduate Students; ChatGPT; Ideation; Generative AI; Human-AI Collaboration; Brainstorming
• Other Study ID Numbers: 20358

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: NO
• IPD Plan Description: Individual participant data (IPD) will not be shared publicly due to an elevated risk of deductive re-identification. While numeric outcomes could be anonymized, the primary data consists of raw qualitative text (transcribed group brainstorming ideas and solutions) generated by a highly specific, geographically localized cohort of undergraduate students enrolled in the 2026 summer research program. Because the 2026 cohort size is small and the context is unique, sharing raw textual transcripts poses a risk of accidentally exposing the identities of the participants through specific phrasing, examples, or contextual clues, despite de-identification efforts. Therefore, to ensure participant confidentiality in accordance with institutional ethics guidelines, the raw data will remain confidential within the primary research team.

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No