This is the first part of a six-part series on how the innovation process is evolving in the age of AI.
We are living through a strange moment. On one hand, the barrier to building something new has dropped to nearly zero. What used to take a team of engineers weeks can now be spun up in an afternoon with the right AI tools. On the other hand, the uncertainty of where all this is going has never been higher. You might find this exciting, or maybe it gives you anxiety. Probably a bit of both.
The result is a flood of creation. Everyone is building. And I love that energy. I think people should be building; it is the best way to learn.
But let’s talk about where that leads. When the barrier to entry is low and the tools are easy, the natural human instinct will be to solve the problems right in front of our faces. We’ll fix the little inefficiencies in our design or coding workflows. We’ll build better to-do lists. We’ll patch the small holes in our day.
In my view, this will lead to a sea of incrementalism. We will end up with thousands of solutions for today’s annoyances, but very few answers for tomorrow’s reality. We are optimizing for a world that is about to change in a meaningful way.
…Preparing for the future doesn’t require prediction, it just requires a shift in perspective.
To build a lasting solution, one must focus on anticipating tomorrow’s problems — the issues that do not exist yet, but are likely coming based on current trends.
If you’re skeptical, that’s understandable. If you think that no one can predict the future, then you would be correct. Trying to pinpoint the exact future state of AI hardware or software in five years is impossible. However, preparing for the future doesn’t require prediction, it just requires a shift in perspective.
Pivot to Plural
The biggest mistake teams make is arguing over “The Future” as if it is a single destination. It’s a magical place where we talk to AI eyeglasses all day, nap or get work done in our self-driving pods, and have humanoid robots to empty our dishwashers.
Stop thinking of the future as one destination — and start thinking in the plural.
The future always sounds so clean, but the present rarely is. So stop trying to pick the winner. Stop thinking of the future as one destination — and start thinking in the plural.
Are we all going to be talking to our AI assistants all day? If so, how? Through smart glasses as Meta hopes, AI pins as Apple rumors say, or discreet earbuds, as in the movie Her? And where does the phone go in these scenarios? Does it remain as is, but retreat to just being an accessory display in the pocket? Or does it fade away entirely?
What if you didn’t have to “choose” at all, but instead embraced the uncertainty and imagined them all to be true. Try capturing each scenario that feels meaningfully different, like the four “corners” of the future, each pushing on different attributes to their extremes. The goal isn’t to get to the “right” answer about what the future will be, but to force yourself to consider it from all unique perspectives. It’s about finding blind spots and discovering opportunity.
Living in the Scenarios
Once you have these scenarios, make them real. This is where I actually find AI most useful. Not to write the code, but to help visualize the day-to-day reality of these futures. What’s daily life like in this world? Tell stories. Make it real through words, images, and video.
When you use storytelling to make a future scenario feel real, you start to notice things. You see the cracks. You spot the new annoyances that don’t exist yet.
- Does constant AI listening lead to changes in social behavior?
- Will we need to signal to others when we’re talking to our wearable AI devices?
- Will the lack of eye contact become a frustration when talking to people in AI glasses?
These are just a few of the emerging challenges we’ll need to anticipate and address.
The Market of One
Finding unique, anticipatory problems is the secret starting point for differentiation. If you build for today’s problems, you are likely competing with everyone else who has a laptop and an internet connection. But if you go after the problem that only you’ve anticipated, and you go after it with maniacal focus, then you are competing in a market of one.
So pick a problem from the future. It could be one that is pervasively annoying across all your scenarios. Or perhaps you bet on one incredibly painful problem that shows up in fewer scenarios. Whichever path you take, as you proceed, look for signals to verify that that future is starting to emerge.
Then, stop being so negative. Reframe your project’s goal as a positive destination. Turn the negative “people will be annoyed by X” into a positive “help people achieve Y.” This gives you a clear job-to-be-done. It gives you a North Star that holds true as uncertainty unfolds.
The next step is figuring out if your team actually believes in that North Star. But that is a topic for the next piece in this series.
(Continue reading this series… The Bobblehead Effect: How the Illusion of Agreement Can Kill Innovation)
Todd Reily is a design and innovation leader who helps teams manage uncertainty to architect breakthrough product experiences. He spent the last decade shaping the future of sound at Bose, and developing one of the world’s first social robots at Jibo. His work has been recognized by two Time Magazine “Best Inventions” citations, and over 25 design patents.
You must be logged in to post a comment.