Has AI Surpassed Humans in Creative Idea Generation? A Meta-Analysis

Has AI surpassed humans in creative idea generation? This question has gained traction as generative AI (GenAI) has become widely used to support creativity. To evaluate this, we examined the first wave of experimental studies comparing human and GenAI-prompted creative idea generation by conducting a meta-analysis of 17 studies comprising 115 effect sizes. The results showed a small but non-significant pooled effect favoring GenAI. Initial analyses suggested greater originality in GenAI ideas, but sensitivity analysis showed this was driven by a few studies with very large effects. No significant differences were found between human ideas and those generated by prompting specific GenAI models (GPT-3, GPT-3.5, GPT-4). Funnel plots and asymmetry tests indicated no evidence of publication bias, supporting the findings’ validity. This meta-analysis finds no empirical support suggesting that GenAI has surpassed humans in creative idea generation. We discuss sociotechnical and sociocultural approaches as crucial for shaping human and artificial creativity.