How to use AI for product design?

Artificial intelligence (AI) has made a significant leap in its ability to help any professional in their work. I do not discover anything new if I tell you that, AI will have an impact on humanity as the industrial revolution or the arrival of the Internet had. The good use of artificial intelligence in companies provides great efficiencies and, therefore, improvements in results accounts providing solutions to specific problems in seconds.

The AI ​​has also broken into the art world and can execute tasks that require creativity such as graphic design, music and, of course, product design or innovation. There are AI tools that generate images, texts or prototypes in seconds and is, given that circumstance that a crucial question arises: how is AI influencing our creative capacity and to what extent can you complement, or perhaps, replace, replaceOur originality when conceiving new products and services?

After more than twenty years working in the world of technological innovation and product design and more than six years (until writing these lines) dedicated to the study and development of artificial intelligence, I want to respond in these lines to theQuestion of how can IA be used for product design? and convey my opinion on whether AI has come to kill our creativity.

How does an AI work in a simple way?

A fundamental aspect to understand is that the generative AI, which covers technologies such as chatgpt, graphic design tools or platforms that create music and art, do not create their content from scratch. The functioning of artificial intelligence is based on the combination of pre -existing data where patterns are detected and adjusted and styles are replicated in order to generate an answer.

To understand us better, an AI (today) does not create content that has not been previously created by the human being. Imagine a huge database with all the articles of a newspaper. All these articles are the knowledge basis with which it is trained to AI and, so to speak, that is your known world so you can not respond or create content about something that you do not know. If that newspaper only spoke of sport, that AI would not be able to solve questions about policy characters because, basically, it does not have that knowledge.

This same philosophy taken to the design of products and services, could be useful if we train that AI, for example with samples on creative processes, generation of prototypes, hypothesis approach and, eventually this IA could expedite processes such as the creation of new prototypes, theHypothesis approach or the conceptualization of initial ideas. But is creativity to replicate patterns?

Can you contribute the creative solutions?

The creative process in product design and innovation requires more than a simple patterns adjustment. It is about connecting seemingly different ideas using, for example, lateral thought techniques. Innovation requires having a high capacity to face complex challenges and problems with a different thought than usual and seeing opportunities where others see barriers.

AI, although it can be a valuable tool to accelerate certain processes, does not have the ability to provide that unique human intuition that transforms the first outline of an idea into a reality that solves a problem in a different way. Therefore, an artificial intelligence will not provide creative solutions.

Do we lose creativity when we use ia?

Since artificial intelligence provides rapid solutions to concrete problems companies and people can fall into complacency and not make an effort to be creative. In fact, one of the great dilemmas we face in the world of innovation and creativity is yes, the fact of resorting too much to AI will reduce our ability to think originally and affect other types of skills such asCritical thinking or decision making.

However, this vision also has its counterpoint. By freeing ourselves from repetitive or less inspiring tasks, AI can give us more space to focus on the truly creative aspects of design. The key is to know how to use AI without replacing our own creation capacity.

I use AI every day in my work for many tasks and, when you combine your own creative capabilities with these tools, what happens is that your results and speech are enhanced. You can, for example, take advantage of the AI ​​to be that client with whom you would like to talk and you have no in front and can be a first contact point for inspiring or contrasting your idea.

How to integrate AI in the design process?

It is important to clearly define the purpose of AI within your creative process. As I exposed you in the previous example, you can take advantage of your ability to overcome creative blockages or ask for help to synthesize concepts, create prototypes or structure the communication of your ideas. Here are some examples of how I used AI in my creative processes.

Use AI validate your idea with "your client"

You can tell Chatgpt, for example, to acquire the role of your type client (25 -year -old man with taste x) and, to appear from there, tell you your idea to AI and will give you answers that, surely, give youWhat to think.

Use AI to communicate complex concepts

Explain your idea and ask for help for simplifying communication, it sure gives you some ideas that will help you in the process of communicating your ideas.

Use AI to prototype

Thanks to AI is not as necessary as years ago to know how to program. This may be the process that I use most on a day -to -day basis. Tell him to the AI ​​what is your idea and tell him, for example, to make you a website or a script in some programming language for that idea and put to blame and shape your idea through functional prototypes.

AI is an ally for innovation

Artificial intelligence has come to stay, and with it, new ways of working and designing. The AI ​​is an ally that can help you visualize a concept, try ideas quickly and open the door to approaches that you might not have considered for yourself.

Human skills, such as moral judgment, critical thinking and the ability to understand complex contexts remain irreplaceable and irreplaceable by artificial intelligence.

The challenge for product designers is even more human and more creative and integrating these new technologies into our processes without losing sight of our role as creators and visionaries. AI can be a point of support in the search for innovative solutions, but the spark that makes each idea will continue to be that of the soul that conceived it.