Cultivating university students’ creativity and entrepreneurship: An AI-powered scenario-based design thinking approach

Creativity and entrepreneurship are deeply interconnected. While design thinking (DT)—a process of experimentation, prototyping, and iteration—has shown promise in boosting creativity, its role in entrepreneurship education remains understudied. Based on creativity theories and entrepreneurial learning theories, this study developed a novel AI-powered, scenario-based design thinking intervention and explored its impact on students’ creativity and entrepreneurial abilities. Thirty-three university students enrolled in a game-based learning design course participated in the 15-h DT program. Working in teams, participants were guided through the five stages of DT to develop game prototypes, aided by generative AI tools. A series of scenarios based on realistic entrepreneurial practices structured the tasks for each DT stage. Data from student surveys, game prototype artifacts, and interviews were collected and analyzed using explanatory sequential mixed methods. Quantitative results indicated that higher post-intervention scores in creativity and cognitive entrepreneurial abilities including entrepreneurial identity and competencies coincided with participation in the intervention. However, such an association was not observed for entrepreneurial intention or mindset. Qualitative results reported that the AI tools supported creativity and entrepreneurial competencies as a technical assistant, a resource navigator, and a co-creative partner. Immersive scenarios were valuable in enhancing entrepreneurial identity. This study contributes to entrepreneurship education by 1) deepening and innovating the theoretical understanding of the synergistic relationship between creativity and entrepreneurship; 2) proposing an innovative and elaborated DT pedagogy that guides students in creative problem-solving central to entrepreneurship; and 3) shedding light on how to leverage AI tools to foster a human-AI co-design collaboration in the changing entrepreneurial environment. Copyright © 2026 Published by Elsevier Ltd.