Five principles of appreciative inquiry. Appreciative Inquiry (AI) is a completely agreed and request based process for change and change created by David Cooperrider and his partners at Case Western Reserve University from 1980-1986. AI depends on the misleadingly straightforward preface that human frameworks develop toward what we more than once make inquiries about and concentrate our consideration on. It is the investigation and investigation of what offers life to human frameworks when they work taking care of business.