In the bustling realm of product design, a new protagonist has emerged, poised to revolutionise the creative journey: ‘Gen AI’.
In recent discussions among industry experts, the pivotal role of artificial intelligence (AI) in shaping the future of product design has taken center stage.
With the rapid advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AI), designers are now equipped with a powerful ally that reimagines the way we conceptualise, develop, and bring products to market. In this blog, we delve into the transformative potential of Generative AI in product design and explore how it's reshaping the industry as we know it.
Fastrack Product Design process with Gen AI
At the heart of AI-driven design lies the concept of Generative AI, or Gen AI. Unlike traditional design processes, which often rely heavily on human intuition and iterative feedback loops, it adapts and simulates human intelligence to seamlessly suggest unique design inspirations to solve complex design problems.
Product designers can now explore countless variations of a product, quickly iterate on concepts, and uncover innovative solutions at 2X faster pace.
When used correctly, Gen AI helps to reduce the product development cycle timelines greatly. These smart tools enable designers to think divergently and connect dots in a non-linear fashion for faster development of products that transform everyday product experiences.
Gen AI smart tools enable faster product development.
How Tata Elxsi Harnessed Gen AI for Streamlined Product Design?
Let us take a compelling example of AI's impact on product design to understand how the different design development stages are made efficient. Here, we take the use case of a water heater designed by the Tata Elxsi product design team.
Initial Prompt: Brief/Context Understanding and Curating Visual Clues and Attributes
The initial stage focused on understanding the design brief, dissecting design attributes to extract apt visual inspirations in the form of mood boards. This groundwork helped the designer guide Gen AI through prompt structuring to combine technical requirements with creative aspirations to set the initial design approach and concept.
Prompt Progression: Prompt Strategy Word Mining and Concept Design Exploration
The process evolves with the refinement of AI prompts through strategic word selection, aiming to capture the desired design essence. This phase involved iterative interactions with creative tools like Midjourney and Vizcom to explore unique aesthetic treatments, experiment color-material-finishes (CMFs), render realistic concept designs and visualise immersive product scenarios, leveraging the Gen AI's capabilities for innovative design expressions.
Final Refined and Manufacturable Stages: Adapting to Right Form and Proportion and Making the Concept Feasible & 3D CAD Visualisation
The final stages adapt AI-generated concepts to practical, manufacturable designs, focusing on form, proportion, and feasibility. Detailed 3D CAD visualisations bring these refined concepts to life, showcasing the integration of Gen AI within the traditional design process.
Redefining Product Design Workflows
Beyond individual cases, the broader implications of AI for design workflows are equally profound. Integrating Gen AI into the design process can help achieve cost-effectiveness not just through material optimisation, but to help meet project timelines efficiently. By streamlining processes, reducing reliance on external assets, and fostering a culture of continuous innovation, Gen AI empowers designers to explore new frontiers of creativity and problem-solving.
In a design team, effective communication often hinges on sharing sketches, images, or references, which can sometimes take a while to gather and define. With the integration of Gen AI, this process becomes streamlined, allowing for quick generation and presentation of ideas, enhancing collaboration and speeding up decision-making. Moreover, AI-driven insights enable product designers to make data-informed decisions, identify emerging trends, and anticipate customer preferences with accuracy.
From Creator-Centric to Curator-Centric: The Future of Product Design
As AI continues to permeate the design landscape, it's reshaping not only how we create but how we think about design. With AI tools like Gen AI, designers are not just pushing the boundaries of creativity, but they are fundamentally redefining the role of product designers as strategic curators of AI-generated insights. In fact, the trends that will most likely dominate the AI world in the coming years are:
- Ultra-Realistic Media Generation: In the near future, generating ultra-realistic images and videos will become astonishingly straightforward. With just a few lines of prompts, tools like SORA will empower users to create high-quality videos effortlessly, revolutionising media production and editing.
- Comprehensive Data Synthesis: AI will simplify extensive research projects by aggregating diverse data types, such as user insights, expert opinions, and technical research, onto single platforms like Figma. This innovation will streamline the synthesis of complex data, delivering relevant results efficiently.
- Intelligent Machine Learning Integration: The focus is shifting towards seamlessly blending machine learning with user experience (UX) and digital interfaces. Future systems will not only comprehend machine language but also modify and adapt to dynamic requirements, enhancing interactions between users and digital or physical components.
One of the most intriguing questions raised during discussions is whether Gen AI is destined to replace human expertise altogether. The consensus among experts is clear: Gen AI is not here to supplant human creativity but rather to amplify it. Gen AI’s role is to proactively help product designers avoid getting stuck in feedback loops while designing, allowing them to think in different tangents, encouraging more room for innovations. This liberation is made possible through what can be termed as "prompt engineering" – a skill set where designers craft curated prompts to guide Gen AI systems towards precise outcomes aligned with their vision.
Conclusion
Gen AI is a strong partner and assistant for designers; it's a catalyst for transformative change in product design. One of the most exciting prospects lies in the integration of Gen AI into digital products. Here, AI-driven user interfaces have the potential to adapt and evolve based on user interactions and machine learning algorithms. Imagine a future where product controls, both digital and physical, are customised and responsive, seamlessly blending human intuition with AI capabilities. Gen AI revolutionises industrial design (product design) by offering unparalleled exploration of CMF (Color, Material, and Finish), lighting intricacies, and scenario renderings, enabling designers to craft immersive experiences with unprecedented precision and efficiency. By harnessing the power of Gen AI, product designers can push the boundaries of what's possible, create products that resonate with customers on a deeper level, and ultimately shape the future of design in profound and meaningful ways.
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