Current generative AI has the potential to automate work activities that absorb 60-70% of employees’ time today according to McKinsey. Now, innovation scouts can save hours of manual research with the help of GenAI to identify potential partnerships and emerging trends.
These tools are so easy to use that any innovator can cut down on manual scouting time to source more relevant solutions for the needs of their business unit, faster. In this article we’ll cover a few best practices to accelerate preliminary scouting with AI, and more specifically, how to leverage Bloomflow’s AI Scout.
Best practice #1: Use AI as an assistant, not a replacement
It's essential to approach AI as a collaborative sidekick that enhances your scouting capabilities rather than treating it as a substitute for human input. AI can save you significant time by helping you quickly understand complex and technical topics you may not be familiar with. This preliminary understanding can help you interpret the request, converting the problem statement into a startup. Furthermore, it helps you cut through marketing jargon to quickly understand what the startup actually does.
When using an AI for scouting, remember it's the human touch, your industry knowledge, and your ability to interpret the context that brings true value to these insights. Once the first round of results starts coming in, take the time to research the solutions and evaluate their potential fit and impact on your goals. In your research, you’re likely to come across ideas to help you iterate on or refine your AI-enhanced search.
It's worth noting that AI models can occasionally produce unusual or fake results — this is known as 'hallucination.' To minimize this, be sure to check if the result is verified on Crunchbase or LinkedIn, in the verified results column. For any unverified results, be sure to click over to their website to conduct your own research before adding any leads to your portfolios.
Best Practice #2: craft a clear and direct prompt tied to your goals
Ready to discover new potential partners? The first thing you need to do is to come up with a prompt that's tied to what you want to achieve. Are you trying to solve an operational problem that's holding your team back? Or maybe you're on the hunt for solutions that align with your corporate strategic axes?
When writing your prompt, make sure to keep it structured and precise. Think of it as giving directions - the clearer you are, the more likely you are to end up where you want to go. A well-thought-out prompt will help the AI understand what you're looking for and deliver results that are spot-on and truly useful.
Example prompts for Bloomflow’s AI Scout
- Give me a list of startups [using generative AI for health and wellness]
- Generate top startups [helping companies reduce their carbon footprint within the Retail industry]
- Give me startups revolutionizing [industry]
- Give me innovative companies in [industry]
- How can we solve [problem statement]
- Find startups similar to [company]
Best practice #3: curate results with follow-up questions and commands
Once you’ve got an interesting list of results from your AI Assistant, don’t stop there! Use prompts to hone in on the most relevant results.
Does your company or project have specific requirements for the partners you’re scouting? Tell it to add a column to display the information desired, or simply remove some results. For startups you might have requirements around the maturity or size. Ask the AI Scouting Assistant to narrow down results to startups at least 5 years old, or who have 50 or more employees. Or perhaps you only want to work with a partner local to your country or region for security requirements for ease of collaboration.
The more you drill down your results before adding them to your portfolio, the higher data quality you’ll have on your innovation management platform. When filtering results, we recommend feeding the AI one command at a time. For example, ask it to remove startups less than 5 years old. Once results are updated, tell it to add a column with last funding date.
Example prompts to drill down results
- Remove companies [less than 2 years old]
- Only show companies with [500 or more employees]
- Add a column with [latest round of funding]
- Add a column with [founding date]
- Only give me startups based in [country]
In conclusion, AI offers an invaluable tool for innovation scouting, streamlining the process and increasing efficiency. By using it as an assistant, crafting clear prompts tied to your goals, and thoroughly drilling down results, you can maximize its potential and elevate your scouting efforts. With Bloomflow's AI Scout, anyone can become a scout and discover innovative solutions that drive business growth.
Learn more about how Bloomflow can help you identify innovative solutions
