Skip to Main Content
HBS Home
  • About
  • Academic Programs
  • Alumni
  • Faculty & Research
  • Baker Library
  • Giving
  • Harvard Business Review
  • Initiatives
  • News
  • Recruit
  • Map / Directions
Faculty & Research
  • Faculty
  • Research
  • Featured Topics
  • Academic Units
  • …→
  • Harvard Business School→
  • Faculty & Research→
Publications
Publications
  • 2020
  • Working Paper
  • HBS Working Paper Series

Design in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

By: Roberto Verganti, Luca Vendraminelli and Marco Iansiti
  • Format:Print
  • | Language:English
ShareBar

Abstract

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 sensemaking, 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 sensemaking.

Keywords

Artificial Intelligence; Design Thinking; Technological Innovation; Design; Change; Theory; AI and Machine Learning

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.
  • Read Now

About The Authors

Roberto Verganti

Technology and Operations Management
→More Publications

Marco Iansiti

Technology and Operations Management
→More Publications

More from the Authors

    • 2023
    • Faculty Research

    How Wicked Problems Drive Business Performance: A Review of the Academic Literature

    By: Caroline Adelson, Charlotte Kuller, Cate Tompkins, Ellora Sarkar, Samantha Price and Marco Iansiti
    • 2023
    • Faculty Research

    Firm Purpose and Problem Wickedness: A Review of the Academic Literature

    By: Caroline Adelson, Charlotte Kuller, Cate Tompkins, Ellora Sarkar, Samantha Price and Marco Iansiti
    • March 2023
    • Faculty Research

    Moderna

    By: Marco Iansiti, Karim R. Lakhani, Hannah Mayer, Kerry Herman, Allison J. Wigen and Dave Habeeb
More from the Authors
  • How Wicked Problems Drive Business Performance: A Review of the Academic Literature By: Caroline Adelson, Charlotte Kuller, Cate Tompkins, Ellora Sarkar, Samantha Price and Marco Iansiti
  • Firm Purpose and Problem Wickedness: A Review of the Academic Literature By: Caroline Adelson, Charlotte Kuller, Cate Tompkins, Ellora Sarkar, Samantha Price and Marco Iansiti
  • Moderna By: Marco Iansiti, Karim R. Lakhani, Hannah Mayer, Kerry Herman, Allison J. Wigen and Dave Habeeb
ǁ
Campus Map
Harvard Business School
Soldiers Field
Boston, MA 02163
→Map & Directions
→More Contact Information
  • Make a Gift
  • Site Map
  • Jobs
  • Harvard University
  • Trademarks
  • Policies
  • Accessibility
  • Digital Accessibility
Copyright © President & Fellows of Harvard College