Colloquia

Summary

The Artificial Intelligence (AI) industry may still be too young to answer Philip K. Dick’s famous question. However, in recent years, tremendous strides have been made in AI development, the likes of which would make the Touring test blush. The AI industry has entered what can be referred to as it’s third development summer (Muthukrishnan et al., 2020). Models are more accurate and powerful, access is widespread and affordable, and companies are rushing to implement AI at all levels of industry. This is to say; AI is changing the way industries work, and those who fail to adapt are likely to be left behind. This research sets out to explore how small to medium sized design agencies can adapt by integrating AI in their product development workflow. In collaboration with WeLLDesign, an Utrecht based product design agency, a suitable AI implementation strategy will be established. The six month long collaboration will act as a case-study to contextualize AI implementation in what is a generally overlooked segment of the industrial product industry. Herein, this research will focus primarily on the optimization of WeLLDesign’s workflow using AI to minimize and streamline what can be viewed as negative time-sinks within their existing process.