Structured pre-generation elicitation versus single-shot prompting in AI-assisted enterprise decision-making: a randomised online experiment

William Scott-Jackson

Generative AI speeds, and mostly improves, professional work, but there is concern that users who delegate both the production and the evaluation of an answer may accept weak output and engage less with the underlying reasoning (cognitive surrender). Interventions proposed so far, such as unassisted practice or slowing adoption, sit outside the working task. We tested a different approach: an interactive metacognitive scaffolding layer (Cognistance, a prototype developed at the Oxford Centre for Impact Research (OCIR) that asks users to clarify context, choose a strategic direction and explain their reasoning before the AI generates a deliverable). Mean composite quality was 32% higher with the scaffold, with the same direction for every rater. Gains were largest for trade-off articulation and strategic coherence and absent for technical specificity. A large part of the aggregate effect reflected rescue of weak prompts: floor-scored (off-task) deliverables fell from 34% to 5%. Among participants whose own prompt already stated the data-localisation problem, the advantage was 21%. Treatment participants reported greater involvement and took about 2.4 minutes longer on average…