In an era marked by escalating global challenges—including climate change, geopolitical tensions, and democratic destabilization—grassroots movements, NGOs and social businesses increasingly demand urgent action against environmental and social injustices. Meanwhile, the emotional toll of these escalating challenges also leads to disengagement, compounding feelings of helplessness and hampering collaborative efforts. Building on literature on critical pedagogy and prospective theorizing, this study posits that shared positive visions of sustainable futures are essential for addressing both, global challenges themselves and associated disengagement. The study explores Artificial Intelligence (AI)-enabled utopian thinking as a mechanism that groups can use to develop and visualize shared visions of positive futures. By conducting a series of group workshops aimed at co-creating utopian scenarios, we investigate the role of AI as a facilitator, potentially reducing social tensions and enhancing creative imagination. Ultimately, our inquiry seeks to illuminate how AI can aid in forming shared positive visions for the future, empowering communities to work collectively towards a more sustainable world. At the same time, we put a special emphasis on potential backlash effects as well as contingency factors. Thereby, our research enriches the discourse on individual and organizational behavior for sustainable futures, community engagement, and collective action in the face of contemporary crises.
