The intersection of AI and design thinking

At its core, design thinking is about designing for the human experience and delivering a business outcome that keeps the human being at the forefront. So, where does the new, fast-paced world of generative AI fit into such a human-centric process? 

With a wealth of knowledge and over twenty years of experience that uses the enterprise design thinking method, Debbie Vavangas is hopeful. She believes that design thinking and gen AI can complement one another and accelerate the design thinking process now and in the future. Vavangas was an early adopter of the enterprise design thinking method, which she used to develop the IBM Garage™ platform and continues to use with IBM® clients today. 

“I cannot think of a single client over the last ten years that I haven't used design thinking in some form with. It’s been an absolute staple,” said Vavangas, IBM VP and Global Garage Lead. 

The purpose of design thinking is to take a collaborative, iterative approach to designing an experience that is based on evidence, data and the human experience. The process is not linear; it requires a multitude of steps and input from individuals across many different parts of a business. 

The design thinking process was first developed at the enterprise level at IBM by Phil Gilbert, who was the General Manager of IBM Design. Vavangas was one of the earliest adopters of the method and has since been applying it to deliver results for her clients. Gilbert’s method built upon the original design thinking approach from Stanford University and expanded the idea to bring in a broader set of stakeholders and collaborative efforts that make it more scalable. Gilbert and his method of design thinking changed IBM’s business as a whole and transformed the company into a human-centered organization.   

As new technology remains at the forefront of conversations, design thinking is more important than ever. However, exciting, a focus only on the new technology can detract from the main goal, which is delivering a business outcome with humans front and center. 

“It’s no debate, without question, that a designer’s end-to-end process must evolve with the onset of generative AI. I firmly believe that in the end, the secret sauce of design will always remain with the human being,” said Vavangas.

To that point, technology is timestamped, moving at lightning speed, but ever evolving. It’s never been more important to not lose sight of the fact that design thinking is timeless. 

“Don’t think because it’s timeless it’s therefore irrelevant. It’s never been more important,” said Vavangas. 

The new AI era is upon us and if a business isn’t incorporating AI solutions into their business, then they are likely going to fall behind. However, proper inclusion of these new solutions is what will ultimately move the needle. This is especially true for the design thinking process.  

Most importantly, human beings will be the fixture of design thinking no matter what new AI capabilities come out. What remains crucial is the human “ability for lateral thinking, for creativity, especially when you bring diverse perspectives,” said Vavangas, “[and] from my view AI can only take you so far.”

Where AI does play a role is in its ability to push humans forward and urge them to be better and to think more broadly. AI is shifting what design thinkers are doing on the ground, especially when it comes to data collection. Generative AI capabilities can add value to the design thinking process by cutting down on the time spent collecting information and organizing data. Instead, design teams can spend more time on creativity and figuring out what the human experience should be and where it all connects in the process. 

However, Vavangas reiterates the importance of not using gen AI tools in isolation. For example, a persona built by AI, based on very valid data points can be helpful but can’t just be tested by the AI solution. It must be tested on real people. 

“I’m certainly going to give the product that I built for real people to a real person to test it and really gather their feedback,” said Vavangas. “There is no avoiding that step.” 

The role of generative AI and design thinking is playing a critical role in understanding the role of gen AI at a holistic level—where the company culture is in relation to gen AI and where it fits within the organization.  

This new era should bring about excitement and companies should be embracing technology innovation. For design thinking in particular, organizations should be thinking about how they can use this technology to make the design thinking method even better.

Vavangas adds that there are two things that ring true in the generative AI world we live in today. The first being that every single enterprise needs to be a technology company. “How the world has shifted, you need to be able to use technology,” she said. 

The second thing is that every company needs to not only be a technology company, but a product mindset led company. 

“The heart of any kind of product mindset is design thinking and that holistic user experience approach to really understand how you’re going to build something that is used to deliver you a meaningful outcome,” said Vavangas. 

The key to both things is to keep design thinking and its core principles front of mind. And because of the exponential growth of AI technology, it’s never been more important that design thinking remains a feature in everybody’s critical day to day. 

A use case that is relevant to the iteration process that occurs in design thinking is the use of AI to reinvent IT support across the IBM Chief Information Officer (CIO) Organization. The AskIT function took several iterations and is an example of putting humans first. The team would deploy the function, test it, learn from it, test it, learn from it, again and again until it was a tool that worked for the human experience and made the IT experience better for IBM employees.

“There are some big decisions to make on how you balance technology with your innovation agenda, while staying safe in this technology-driven world and understanding how you take the human beings that work in your enterprise and take them on the journey with you. And so, design thinking is critical to that mission,” she said. 

At its core design thinking isn’t about technology. It is about understanding human behavior and experience. Technology follows and will be designed beneath that human-centric approach. 

Vavangas uses a cake as an analogy for the intersection of AI and design thinking. AI is just the icing on the cake. Everything underneath still needs to be baked, and that includes orchestration, hardware, cloud and physical infrastructure.

“You've still got to have all those layers in order to create that incredible experience on the top,” said Vavangas. “The better you bake that cake, the easier it is to frost it, right?”

Human collaboration remains fundamental to design thinking and become even more important for businesses as they attempt to strike the right balance between technology and the human workforce.