Designer Digital Clones Support Planning and Ideation

In the design development work of an automotive manufacturer, we developed a "Designer AI (digital clone)" trained on the company's distinctive identity and on individual designers' sensibilities, and embedded it into planning meetings and the ideation process. By modeling the sensibilities of specific designers and the brand into a chat-dialogue and image-generation AI, we established an environment in which employees can engage in "sounding-board" exchanges with the AI. As the AI generated design proposals (images) through dialogue and offered perspectives from a distinctive viewpoint in meetings, we provided fresh stimulus to day-to-day routine work — supporting the creation of ideas hard to arrive at by people alone, and surfacing the genuine views and ideas that lay buried among employees.

[Challenges]

• Seeking ways to convey the company's "distinctive identity" (it can be expressed through people and products, but a more accessible vehicle was wanted)
• Energizing meetings and designers' creativity (introducing stimulus into work that had become routine)
• Establishing means to capture true needs and ideas (drawing on the essential views and ideas of employees that had stayed buried)

[Results]

• Delivered a conversational interface that reproduces the company's "distinctive identity" (elevating company identity × designer individuality into a conversational UI)
• Leveraged the clone as a source of ideation and counterpoint (the clone generates views and ideas; people then sharpen the value proposition)
• Captured employees' "unfiltered voice" as a sounding-board and listening partner (ideas and views hard to share with people can be voiced to the clone)