Assiduity often receives requests to integrate ChatGPT and other large language models (LLMs) directly into our product planning platform. There’s no denying the transformative power of AI—LLMs are poised to revolutionize virtually every industry. But there’s a critical distinction we must make: AI does not equal automatic innovation.
Innovation isn’t just about speed or scale. It’s about solving real problems for real people—something that requires deep thinking, compassion, and empathy. As powerful as AI is, when overused or misapplied in product development, it can strip away the nuance and human insight that separates good products from great ones.
The Detriments of Over-Reliance on AI in Product Innovation
AI tools can generate ideas in seconds, analyze trends in milliseconds, and even simulate user personas. But that doesn’t mean they inherently understand what people actually need. The risk of relying too heavily on AI in product planning is that we start mistaking outputs for insights.
Here’s what can go wrong:
- Shallow Solutions: AI can regurgitate trends, but it doesn't live the customer experience. Without lived context, AI suggestions often lack the depth required to truly solve human problems.
- Loss of Empathy: Real innovation stems from empathy. Great product teams listen, observe, and connect emotionally with users. AI doesn’t feel. It can mimic language, but it can’t replace emotional intelligence.
- Innovation Myopia: When teams default to AI for answers, they risk reinforcing conventional thinking. AI is trained on historical data. By definition, it reflects the past, not the future.
- Dependency Over Strategy: Relying on AI too early in the process can replace critical strategy sessions with generated content. That undermines the cross-functional dialogue that surfaces bold, category-defining ideas.
Why an AI-Agnostic Platform is Better—for Now
Assiduity was designed with a core belief: Product innovation requires clarity, alignment, and purpose-driven collaboration. Our platform facilitates this by helping teams deeply align on unmet needs, customer insights, and go-to-market strategies before technology—even AI—is introduced into the process.
Here’s why our current AI-agnostic approach gives product teams a competitive edge:
- Focus on First Principles: We encourage teams to build from the ground up—identifying root problems, customer tensions, and real-world friction that need solving.
- Unbiased Thinking: Our framework promotes original thinking rather than relying on AI-trained narratives. This creates space for breakthrough ideas that don’t just follow trends—they shape them.
- Cross-Functional Alignment: Real innovation comes from bridging silos. Assiduity helps product, marketing, design, and sales leaders collaborate early and intentionally—something no AI can replicate.
In short, we’ve chosen not to rush AI into our platform because we believe the best innovations come from human intelligence—not artificial intelligence.
The AI We’re Building Will Be Game-Changing
That said, we’re not anti-AI. Far from it. We believe AI will play a critical role in accelerating innovation when applied with intention.
That’s why we’re building something entirely different. When AI does become a part of Assiduity, it won’t be a bolt-on chatbot or content generator. It will be a purpose-built innovation engine—one that complements human insight rather than replaces it.
Our future AI features will:
- Enhance, not replace, human-led discovery
- Surface patterns across customer insights, patents, macro trends, and online behavior
- Spark hypothesis generation without sacrificing originality
- Help identify whitespace, validate assumptions, and assess risk
- And most importantly, our AI will be integrated in a way that respects the strategic rigor that great product planning requires.
Human-Led. AI-Supported. Innovation-Obsessed.
Innovation isn’t automatic. It’s intentional. At Assiduity, we’re proud to support teams that value deep thinking, creative tension, and cross-functional clarity. While others race to automate ideation, we’re building a platform that champions disciplined, human-led innovation—powered by AI only when it truly adds value.
Let’s build the future together—with empathy, insight, and intelligence.