More from these Authors

• Working Paper | HBS Working Paper Series | 2020

  Design in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

  Roberto Verganti, Luca Vendraminelli and Marco Iansiti

  Artificial Intelligence (AI) is affecting the scenario in which innovation takes place. What are the implications for our understanding of design? Is AI just another digital technology that, akin to many others, will not significantly question what we know about design? Or will it create transformations in design that our current frameworks cannot capture? To address these questions, we have investigated two pioneering cases at the frontier of AI, Netflix and AirBnB (complemented with analyses in Microsoft and Tesla), which offer a privileged window on the future evolution of design. We found that AI does not undermine the basic principles of Design Thinking (people-centered, abductive and iterative). Rather, it enables to overcome past limitations (in scale, scope and learning) of human-intense design processes. In the context of AI factories solutions may even be more user-centered (to an extreme level of granularity, i.e. being designed for every single person), more creative, and continuously updated through learning iterations that span the entire life cycle of a product. Yet, we found that AI profoundly changes the practice of design. Problem solving tasks, traditionally carried on by designers, are now automated into learning loops that operate without limitations of volume and speed. These loops think in a radically different way than a designer: they address complex problems through very simple tasks, iterated exponentially. The article therefore proposes a new framework for understanding design practice in the age of AI. We also discuss the implications for design and innovation theory. Specifically, we observe that, as creative problem solving is significantly conducted by algorithms, human design increasingly becomes an activity of sense making, i.e. to understand which problems make sense to be addressed. This shift in focus calls for new theories and brings design closer to leadership, which is, inherently, an activity of sense making.

  Citation:

  Verganti, Roberto, Luca Vendraminelli, and Marco Iansiti. "Design in the Age of Artificial Intelligence." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 20-091, February 2020.  View Details

  CiteView Details Read Now

  Related

• Case | HBS Case Collection | November 2019 (Revised December 2019)

  Indigo Agriculture: Harnessing Nature

  Marco Iansiti, Michael W. Toffel and James Barnett

  Indigo Agriculture used a digital-enabled research and development (R&D) process to launch its initial product, microbial coatings for agricultural seeds, which increase crop yields while reducing the need for fertilizers. In doing so, the company developed direct relationships with farmers, in contrast to typical agricultural supply chains that use intermediaries. The company then launched a marketplace platform to link growers directly to crop buyers, again disintermediating the market. Indigo Agriculture is now considering launching an initiative to incentivize farmers to engage in regenerative agricultural practices by setting up a carbon market that could pay them for sequestering carbon into their soils. If scaled globally, the idea could sequester as much as one trillion tons (a teraton) of carbon dioxide from the earth’s atmosphere into agricultural soils, but pursing the idea has many risks.

  Keywords: carbon sequestration; Agribusiness; Technological Innovation; Environmental Sustainability; Supply Chain; Market Platforms; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry;

  Citation:

  Iansiti, Marco, Michael W. Toffel, and James Barnett. "Indigo Agriculture: Harnessing Nature." Harvard Business School Case 620-024, November 2019. (Revised December 2019.)  View Details

  CiteView DetailsEducatorsPurchase

  Related

• Case | HBS Case Collection | October 2018 (Revised August 2019)

  The Boston Beer Company: New CEO

  Christina R. Wing and Marco Iansiti

  Keywords: Beer/brewing industry; supply chain; succession; Leadership; Change; Supply Chain; United States;

  Citation:

  Wing, Christina R., and Marco Iansiti. "The Boston Beer Company: New CEO." Harvard Business School Case 619-021, October 2018. (Revised August 2019.)  View Details

  CiteView DetailsEducators

  Related