AI in product creation – what does current research say?

Where is artificial intelligence used in product creation and where is it suitable to work with data-centric methods? By analyzing 40 existing studies and 94 case studies on the topic of AI in product creation, experts from the AI Marketplace found out which areas of product creation are the focus of research and to what extent data-centric approaches are being used in current research. The results are now available in a research report.

Product creation refers not only to the development of new products, but also encompasses the entire process of planning and developing a product and associated services, from the initial idea to manufacturing and distribution. This results in the following four different areas:

  • Strategic product planning
  • Product development
  • Service development
  • Production system development

There are numerous tasks in these sub-areas, most of which are currently still performed by specialists. However, as artificial intelligence (AI) increasingly finds itself in the production sector, there are many opportunities for the use of AI in product creation as well. But which areas are currently the focus of research?

AI is most frequently applied in product development

From the analysis of the studies, it can be observed that most of the proposed AI approaches are solutions to problems in the field of product development. The lowest percentage of solutions is related to service development.

One reason for the many AI solutions in product development is that this area in general has a particularly large number of problems which can be successfully solved using AI methods.

In contrast, the development of services, is an area that often involves the manual execution of a process. This results in less use of AI. In addition, the area of service development is closely related to product development. A provider can intuitively offer a service based on the know-how of the product, while transforming a service into a product without in-depth knowledge is much more difficult.

What role do data-centric approaches play in current research?

Data-centric methods are being used in all areas of product creation.

The area of strategic product planning is the most suitable for working with data-centric methods. After all, the field is mainly concerned with market potentials that are identified based on observations that can be captured in data. Another advantage is that the data formats used are suitable for working with data-centric methods, since a large proportion of the processes in this area use textual and numerical data. These can be processed directly by existing data-centric solutions.

In contrast, the other areas of product creation often use complex data formats that are specific to product creation. This data cannot be processed directly, increasing the development effort required for data-centric methods.

Would you like to learn more about the background and methods of analysis? Then take a look at our research report:

Click here to go to the report

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