AI widens the options. Imagining the future stays with us.

An AI system can give you ten business ideas in a minute. It cannot decide which future your company should build.

A new review in the Journal of Business Venturing helps explain why. Alexander Kier, Neil Thompson, Todd Chiles and Joep Cornelissen examined 108 articles on entrepreneurial imagination. That is the ability to picture a future that does not exist yet, and to act towards it.

Three ideas from the review are useful for leaders who use AI:

Imagination is part of the decision

The authors describe the future as being "under construction, one decision at a time" (p. 2). Research they cite found that creative, social and practical imagination each predicted better new venture ideas (p. 9-10).

Moral imagination grows between people

It means recognising ethical dilemmas, reframing problems and envisioning responsible solutions (p. 11). The authors argue it is "not likely to be replaced by Gen AI". It emerges from collective action and stakeholder relationships (p. 17).

Practical wisdom needs shared routines

Judgement grows through recurring practices such as strategy meetings and customer conversations (p. 17). If AI prepares everything and people only approve, these routines become thinner.

The Gen AI statement is a theoretical argument, not a tested result. The literature search ends in 2022.

One practical idea

Before your next strategy meeting, write down the future you want for customers and staff in your own words. Then ask AI for alternatives and counterarguments. Tell it to contradict you. Decide in conversation with the people who will carry the result, and name who is responsible.

I heard the same message at the Bodensee Summit in Konstanz this week: responsibility for AI output stays with people.