Human pairs produced more creative, diverse ideas than ChatGPT, study finds

Published on Dorsal: October 30, 2026 at 8:30 AM (UTC)

Editorial update: October 30, 2026 at 10:34 AM (UTC)

Source date: October 28, 2026 at 12:20 PM (UTC)

AI-generated conceptual illustration for “Human pairs produced more creative, diverse ideas than ChatGPT, study finds”. — AI-generated illustration

A randomized study assigned 208 people to brainstorm either with another person or with ChatGPT on the alternate uses task; human pairs generated more creative, more distinct ideas over time while ChatGPT produced longer, higher-volume responses whose suggestions were more homogeneous. Persona prompting increased AI diversity but did not match human ranges.

Summary

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The authors report that in the alternate uses task human–human teams achieved greater semantic distance and idea diversity than human–ChatGPT teams, even as ChatGPT produced more and longer suggestions; repeated AI use led to convergent outputs, and persona prompting raised diversity without reaching human-produced variety.

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