Uneven Gains of Generative Artificial Intelligence on Creativity Enhancement: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Generative artificial intelligence has been increasingly applied across various domains, playing an important role and becoming an indispensable part of modern life. A central question surrounding generative AI concerns its potential impact on individual creativity. However, existing findings on whether generative AI enhances creativity remain mixed. To systematically evaluate this issue, we conducted a meta-analysis of 44 empirical studies published over the past five years, incorporating 141 effect sizes. All included studies compared creative task performance between human-only and human-AI collaborative conditions. Overall, results indicated that generative AI-assisted collaboration significantly outperformed human-only performance in creative tasks (Hedges’ g = 0.54, 95% CI [0.27, 0.81]). We also observed potential risks of publication bias in this field and employed multiple statistical approaches to assess the robustness of the findings. Further moderator analyses revealed that the positive effect of AI on creativity was more pronounced among non-expert participants (compared to experts) and within general creative domains (compared to specialized domains). Overall, our meta-analysis contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of how generative AI influences creativity, providing valuable guidance for AI developers and users to better adapt AI-supported creative applications across diverse domains and user populations.