🤖 I tested Miro AI’s mind map feature for ideation and it’s awesome!

Miro AI’s mind map Feature

Last Wednesday, my favorite online collaboration software, Miro, announced the launch of their new AI features. I had early access to these features before the launch and had the chance to test them out for ideation and innovation.

(Note: Miro AI is currently in Beta, find more information here)

Among all the features available, one stood out as the most interesting to me for ideation: the AI powered mindmap. This simple combination of the trusted old mind map with AI assistance seems obvious in hindsight, but it blew my mind. It’s early days for AI assisted tools, but even in its current state the Miro mind map tool is very useful — we can only imagine what this kind of tooling will grow into!

In this post, I’ll share my experience with Miro’s AI-powered mind mapping feature and show you how to use it for your own ideation process, and why I think it is so powerful.

But with so many AI-powered tools emerging, what other possibilities could there be for the future of ideation and innovation? Let’s explore how Miro’s mindmapping feature can help you unlock your creativity and what it might inspire for the future of AI and ideation.

The difficulty of ideating with ChatGPT

While ChatGPT can be a powerful tool for generating ideas, it can also present some challenges in the ideation process. One of the most notable challenges is the linear nature of chat threads, which can be difficult to navigate when ideation is often a nonlinear and iterative process. The sheer volume of ideas generated can also be overwhelming and difficult to manage.

For example, let’s say you’re brainstorming ideas for a new product or service with ChatGPT. You might start off with a few ideas, but as the chat thread grows, it can be difficult to keep track of which ideas are related, which have already been explored, and which are still open for further development. This is where Miro’s mindmapping feature comes in handy, as it allows you to visualize and organize your ideas in a way that makes sense to you.

Another challenge with ChatGPT is that it can sometimes generate ideas that are not relevant or feasible. While this can be a great way to spark creativity, it can also be frustrating to sort through all the ideas to find the ones that are actually useful. Again, Miro’s mindmapping feature can help with this by allowing you to filter out irrelevant ideas and focus on the ones that have potential.

The solution is visual: Miro’s AI-powered mind mapping feature

Thankfully, Miro AI’s mind mapping feature offers a solution to many of the challenges posed by ideating with ChatGPT. This feature allows you to create a visual representation of your ideas in a nonlinear way, helping you to better understand the relationships between different concepts and ideas.

One of the most powerful aspects of Miro’s mindmapping feature is the AI technology that powers it. The feature uses machine learning algorithms to suggest related ideas, helping you to generate new concepts and connections that you might not have thought of otherwise. This makes the ideation process even more powerful, as you can use the suggestions to build upon existing ideas and explore new directions.

In addition to the AI-powered suggestions, Miro’s mindmapping feature also allows you to easily edit and rearrange the mindmap as needed. This makes it a dynamic tool that can adapt to your ideation process as it evolves over time.

How to use mind mapping feature for ideation

Now that we’ve explored the benefits of using Miro’s AI-powered mind mapping feature for ideation, let’s take a closer look at how to use it effectively.

To illustrate the feature, I created an example ideation question, where we want to come up with a digital app to help with sleeping problems.

When starting your mind map, use the ‘magic icon’ to access the AI features. (Note: these features are part of a beta program and may not be immediately available)

I added three branches to the mindmap to guide the exploration to the target audience, types of sleeping problems, and potential solutions. Then I asked the AI to come up with ideas.

Resulting mind map with ideas

Now, it’s time to go over this in more detail and edit the mind map, expanding it or diving deeper into some of the branches. The tool gives you the option to expand with questions, topics or ideas. I chose to expand with questions in this example.

Diving deeper into the branch ‘circadian rhythm disorder’ by generating questions.

Now we get a large list of questions that will help guide further research into this area. I used ChatGPT to find some of the answers and added them manually. The mindmap format makes it easy to go back and forth between Miro, research tools, and other AI tools such as ChatGPT.

ChatGPT helps me get some answers together by answering specific questions. (Note: don’t forget your fact checking!).

I used ChatGPT to answer some of the questions. Miro can also answer questions by generating topics and ideas, but sometimes it is nice to have extra control over your prompt. Adding the answers to the mind map is of course easy:

Manually expanding the mind map with ChatGPT’s answers

And now comes the great part: the mindmap automatically visualizes your progress. It is now easy to see where you might dive deeper, and to find relationships between different branches.

The overview shows where exploration has progressed and where you might still dive deeper.

This way of working, going back and forth between tools and having the rest of the innovation team collaborate, brings immediate results. Gone is the stress of bookkeeping of innovation results and open loops. The mindmap format is almost like a native language for the ideation process.

Looking at the results I found for the example above, for instance, immediately triggers some ideas: are available DIY DNA scans like 23andme are able to see if there is a mutation in the genes mentioned? Do genetic factors play a part in other sleeping disorders?

Tips

While working with the Miro AI mindmap feature for ideation, I came up with the following tips:

1. Start with a central idea or theme: Begin by identifying a central idea or theme for your ideation process. This will serve as the starting point for your mindmap.
2. Add related ideas: From the central idea, start adding related ideas to the mindmap. These could be generated through ChatGPT, or they could be your own ideas.
3. Use AI-powered suggestions: As you add ideas to the mindmap, take advantage of the AI-powered questions, ideas, and topics offered by Miro’s mindmapping feature. These suggestions can help you to generate new connections and ideas that you might not have thought of on your own.
4. Group related ideas: As your mindmap grows, group related ideas together. This will help you to better understand the relationships between different concepts and ideas.
5. Edit and rearrange the mindmap: Don’t be afraid to edit and rearrange the mindmap as needed. This will help you to refine your ideas and explore new directions. Remove branches that are not interesting to your process.
6. Use the mindmap as a reference: Once you’ve created a comprehensive mindmap, use it as a reference for your ideation process. This will help you to keep track of open loops and generate new ideas based on existing ones.

Overall, Miro’s AI-powered mindmapping feature is a powerful tool for ideation and innovation. By using this feature, you can visualize your ideas in a nonlinear way, generate new connections and concepts with AI-powered suggestions, and refine your ideas over time. With these tips in mind, you’ll be able to unlock your creativity and take your ideation process to the next level.

Besides using Miro AI’s mind map feature, there are of course many more tips and tricks to get the most out of Generative AI in ideation. How about techniques to get more unique ideas? Or to build and test-drive validation interviews? In fact, many more than I can list her here! So, I created a downloadable e-book with an example ideation flow. In the e-book, I use ChatGPT to design a new concept from idea stage right through initial validation and a value proposition. The e-book includes all the prompts and thinking steps in between and shows how you can use ChatGPT in the ideation stage. If you want to start experimenting, this e-book is for you!

Get the ebook here

Happy ideating!

– Erik

Do you want to know more about AI Assisted Innovation and AI Assisted Innovation Workshops? Want to experience ideation using ChatGPT, Midjourney, GPT-4, and other tools? Follow this link and sign up, and I’ll get in touch!