AIORG-W005 Peer-reviewed research AI × management and organizations

The Cybernetic Teammate: A Field Experiment on Generative AI Reshaping Teamwork and Expertise

Fabrizio Dell’Acqua · Charles Ayoubi · Hila Lifshitz · Raffaella Sadun · Ethan Mollick · Lilach Mollick · Yi Han · Jeff Goldman · Hari Nair · Stew Taub · Karim R. Lakhani

Also recorded as: NBER w33641 · SSRN 5207588 · The Cybernetic Teammate: A Field Experiment on Generative AI and Teamwork · doi:10.1287/orsc.2025.20702

Organization Science

Recorded claims
3
coded from the inspected source
Evidence classes
2
scholarly-full-text, crossref-api-metadata
Recorded limitations
6
stated, never hidden

From the hash-bound evidence releases

Recorded claims

Each claim states what the inspected source says, at the recorded location—bounded by its scope and graded by its confidence. Nothing here is a synthesis across works.

In a pre-registered experiment with 776 P&G professionals, individuals with AI produced work whose performance matched that of human teams without AI, indicating that an AI complement can substitute for some coordination capacity on the studied product-development tasks.

confidence: high within study; medium external validity scholarly-full-text apw-r0-seed

Scope: P&G product-development professionals and bounded innovation tasks; not full-team or firm-performance equivalence.

AI access reduced performance gaps between commercial and technical specialists and was associated with more positive self-reported emotional responses, supporting a boundary-crossing mechanism while not eliminating the need to test team and task fit.

confidence: medium-high scholarly-full-text apw-r0-seed

Scope: Studied cross-functional innovation tasks and participants; affect outcome is self-reported.

The Crossref-deposited abstract reports that generative AI improved performance and cross-functional balance in a field experiment on product-innovation work, while human judgment retained value in evaluating ideas.

confidence: moderate crossref-api-metadata apw-c1-obot-journals

Scope: abstract-level evidence from professionals and new-product-development teams

Structured relationships

In-corpus citations

Only source-supplied cites relationships whose two endpoints are admitted are shown. Invocation evidence remains a separate relationship.

Cites (18)

Cited by (0)

No in-corpus incoming citation is available in the current enrichment coverage.

Boundaries

Limitations & independence

Recorded at coding time, carried with the work forever. A claim without its limits is not evidence.

Recorded limitations

  • AI/model capability is time-specific
  • Crossref abstract-level metadata only; the publisher surface returned HTTP 403; full text was not inspected
  • Crossref supplied only year and month for the issue publication date
  • Single consumer-goods company and selected innovation tasks
  • Some affect and collaboration measures are self-reported
  • Working-paper status

Source independence

Academic field experiment conducted with P&G professionals; one focal firm supplies the setting but treatment was pre-registered.