As the curtain parted on moooi’s 2022 exhibit, the audience was treated to a multi-sensory performance unlike any other: four synchronized robot scent diffusers telling a story through dance. As the robots—called Piro—swayed and dipped to the beats of a custom-designed soundscape, it was easy to forget the performers were made by a team of industrial designers and engineers in San Francisco.

The work expressed a future vision for what it means to humanize technology. Rather than design technology to make our lives more efficient, what if instead we designed technology to make life more beautiful?

For twenty years, moooi has seduced the world with bold, imaginative design. The firm, named after the Dutch word for beautiful, made its name by designing furniture and home goods that appeal to an interest in pushing the edges of form as much as function. Moooi came to IDEO looking to create an exhibit for the largest furniture fair in the world that might provoke the audience to imagine a world where design’s primary function was to inspire joy.

“Defy Gravity”: one of several experiential “worlds” moooi created for the 2022 Salone del Mobile. Each room had its own scent, soundscape, color, and digital experience.

Our process started by going wide. We presented 20 potential conceptual designs to the team, one of which moooi founder Marcel Wanders lovingly referred to as the “farting pet,” a robot scent diffuser that could walk around the home.

A scented smoke ring lingers in the air after Piro’s final crescendo.

From there, a team of IDEO designers enlisted the support of Catie Cuan, a choreographer who specializes in human-robot interaction, and Dutch sound design firm KLOAQ, to refine the concept into a four-minute performance piece.

Piro learned to mimic balletic human gestures.

The final result was technically involved: four robots moved independently, controlled by custom electronics and software designed to mimic the movements and grace of ballerinas. But in the performance itself, the complex mechanics disappeared, allowing the audience to experience not just what technology can do, but how it can make us feel.

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What happens when a designer and a classically-trained choreographer collaborate? Attendees of Salone del Mobile.Milano, the largest furniture fair in the world, got to see for themselves.

To build a climate-resilient future, we need an all-hands-on-deck approach across industries and organizations, as well as the leadership and collaboration of frontline communities themselves. 

To that end, IDEO and CSAA Insurance Group worked together to unite nine partner organizations, including Aon and the Environmental Defense Fund, to launch an open call for solutions to help communities prevent, prepare for, and recover from climate-related disasters. The goal of the Challenge was to surface actionable and scalable ideas that experiment with new technologies, models, and partnerships, then provide innovators with the support and funding they need to get their ideas off the ground and into the hands of frontline communities.

IDEO set these entrepreneurs up for success throughout the submission process, holding one-on-one conversations with participants, sharing constructive feedback on potential solutions, and developing their ideas and skill sets. The team also hosted workshop and panel sessions to grow community bonds and provide expertise on critical topics, including assessing climate risk and storytelling for impact. Hundreds of ideas came in from around the world, ranging from harnessing the power of AI, to building resilient infrastructures, to democratizing access to climate data, and more.

Once all of the ideas were in, a cohort of judges with a wide diversity of work and lived experience screened for concepts that were relevant, impactful, novel, community-informed, and equitable. At the end of the Challenge, the team chose 13 winning concepts with high potential for impact and partnerships, including Reef Rocket, which seeks to fabricate natural biocement reefs that reduce coastal flooding and erosion, and BurnBot, which is working to prevent wildfires by conducting controlled burns at scale.  

For these winning entrepreneurs, the end of the Challenge is just the beginning. Now, they are equipped with critical early funding, as well as a cohort of climate entrepreneurs, along with mentorship from IDEO, CSAA, and the other organizations. It’s a big step forward as they introduce new forms of equitable and transparent data, promote the voices of BIPOC communities, and bring to market new technologies that will protect and support frontline communities through this ongoing crisis. 

Read the Challenge Impact Report to learn more.

In the US alone, climate-related disasters cause $120 billion in damages annually. That figure is five times greater than 50 years ago, and projections are $2 trillion by the end of the century.

Nearly 90% of counties in the US declared a natural disaster over the last decade.

418

submissions

13

winners

$1M

in prizes

Every year, the NSF provides around 30 teams with up to $750,000 and a year’s worth of coaching, training, and collaboration to develop solutions for research areas like sustainable ocean use or combating fake news. Over the course of nine months, the teams learn how to uncover insights about human needs and design durable solutions for end users. But many of the scientists and experts in the program felt stretched by the idea of putting the needs of end users in the mix with their scientific testing—something few of them have been trained to do in their previous work.

To make that process feel more achievable, the teams built out prototypes and received guidance on refining and pitching their ideas along the way. IDEO joined the project as an innovation partner, facilitating hands-on workshops and creating “Science TV” episodes that could help the program reach a broader audience, deepening its impact now and in the future.

To help grantees get vulnerable, and evolve their ways of working, IDEO sent grantees to improv training  so that they could learn to build off each other. The team also took them to magic shows and on ghost tours in downtown San Francisco to learn the value of compelling storytelling in their work. The fun was part of the plan—gelling as a team and building relationships meant participants could make mistakes in front of one another. Being wrong doesn’t come naturally to academics, but it’s a key part of the design process, and a crucial part of solving complex problems .

Each year, a select group of teams move onto the next phase of the “coop-etition,” receiving up to $5 million in additional funding. And all of the participants leave with valuable new skills they can use to break out of their own silos and create human-centered, ground-breaking solutions for the rest of their careers.

When the NSF launched the Convergence Accelerator and made the radical move of bringing together teams from different disciplines, these academics, scientists, and industry partners didn’t have a shared language to move their ideas forward, and needed a structured approach to coming up with new solutions.

164

trained research teams

$200M

in federal support granted to AI-driven innovation, quantum technology, food security, sustainable materials, opportunities for people with disabilities, and more

IDEO and The Earthshot Prize built a nine-month Fellowship program and a five-day, in-person retreat to give Finalists the best shot at reaching the Prize’s ultimate goal: to scale the solutions that will repair our planet this decade.

To build out the new Fellowship, IDEO took a deep dive with the previous year’s Finalists to uncover where they needed critical support. This research revealed that the Finalists needed more ways to leverage the Earthshot platform, connect with potential partners to help scale their ideas, and build community with each other. The IDEO team then used those insights to create a set of recommendations The Earthshot Prize team could implement to create a more supportive and structured experience. Ideas they took forward included assigning a designated “Leap Advisor” who could provide guidance and assistance for each Finalist, as well as an advisor from the Prize’s Global Alliance Network who could partner on specific growth initiatives, like scaling product design, or policy change. 

Next up: the design of the retreat itself. Together, IDEO and the Earthshot team had three goals for the cohort’s week together in Windsor: focus on new forms of leadership and movement building, spur action through storytelling, and foster community.

The team developed the curriculum with leaders from Google X and Speed & Scale, alongside startups like UPSIDE Foods. They designed moments to build community, like paired walks and a chocolate-making workshop where Finalists could get to know each other away from the noise of meetings. 

Photographers captured the event to create assets for Finalists to use when pitching their ideas, and Finalists honed their storytelling skills. But what most remember is the magical moments of coming together as a cohort of next generation climate leaders who will help each other make an impact on the problems facing our planet, long after The Earthshot Prize has concluded.

The problems facing our planet are enormous, spanning industries, borders, currencies, and regulatory environments. Meaningful solutions will require leaders who can work across those lines.

30

climate solutions accelerated in first two years

We believe that period of time is fleeting and precious; it demands action, now.

We’ve jumped into the work with our clients, like Conservation International, Sage, The Earthshot Prize, and the Rockefeller Foundation. We’ve also headed to critical events, like COP 27, and, just a handful of days ago, New York Climate Week 2024 (NYCW). This year’s theme, It’s Time, reflected a clear focus on progress and case studies over goal-setting, both exemplifying the urgency of the work and highlighting the places where it’s actually in motion and making a difference.

On the ground, a group of IDEO design leaders hosted events at the kyu House to share how we can explore opportunities to tackle the climate crisis with creativity. We also heard from companies large and small, governments, activists, scientists and more about the state of the planet, the places where the damage continues, and brilliant and creative ways people are fighting to turn the tide.

Here are five insights from our time at NYCW.

1. The power of imagination was everywhere

The scale of the climate crisis demands action that matches its magnitude. Much of that progress is slow and deliberate for good reason. (It allows for thorough research, careful policy development, technological advancements, and proper stakeholder engagement to ensure effective and equitable long-term solutions.) But there’s also a need for bold, paradigm-shifting moves that can propel climate action forward at speed—and that requires imagination.

This year at New York Climate Week, I witnessed incredible creative solutions in spaces where regulation often leads the conversation. Hearing Vermont’s Attorney General, Charity Clark, share how the state used consumer protection laws to win its lawsuit against Exxon for greenwashing demonstrated how existing legal frameworks can be repurposed to address climate challenges. The state also created the nation’s first "Climate Superfund" to hold Big Oil accountable. This law empowers Vermont's Attorney General to pursue payment from major oil companies for a share of climate change costs incurred by the state since 1995, based on their products' global contributions to the problem.

This case exemplifies how challenging the status-quo with courageous creativity can make a real impact on climate challenges. Imagination isn't just a tool—it's a catalyst for real change.

—Nazlican Goksu

2. The Climate Era calls for integrating AI and nature—not choosing between them

In the early months of 2024, I observed a concerning trend: leaders shifting priorities and budgets toward AI innovation at the expense of climate initiatives, as if the two are mutually exclusive. This is a false choice. The Climate Era demands a transformation where technology and nature are not opposing forces but complementary allies.

However, it was reassuring to see numerous events and active participation on the topic of Climate and AI, with leading organizations from unexpected industries—like big tech—leaning into the conversation with practical applications aimed at tackling complex planetary challenges. AI, technology, and nature will be the foundational building blocks of future organizations.

Good design starts upstream; it begins by questioning why we seek technical solutions and how they can align with sustainable goals. When harnessed thoughtfully, AI can amplify our efforts against climate challenges—from faster wildfire detection to monitoring coral reef health and predicting deforestation. My takeaway is clear: Integrating AI into climate action isn’t just possible; it’s essential. But ensuring that all eight billion people on the planet can participate in designing and benefiting from AI climate solutions in an equitable way remains one of the most critical challenges of today.

—Sergio Fregoni

3. Approaching tipping points underscores the importance of fresh visions

NYCW and the UN General Assembly converged at a moment of realized tipping points. A big one? For the first time, the Amazon rainforest has shifted to a net emissions source. That context flavored a week that felt urgent, deep in execution, and…joyfully rebellious. To meet this shifting moment, we created an experiential journey focused on the question “What if we get it right?” with the Rockefeller Foundation, scientist Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, journalist Elizabeth Kolbert, and climate change leaders from Amazonia and Latin America.

Design has an immersive power to reach hearts beyond minds, and we explored realistic but proactive climate futures through the senses: tasting Ecuadorian biodiverse forests in a gummy, seeing arid landscapes through a viewfinder, touching seeds of regeneration, and hearing indigenous voices. Inspiration, but also rigorous practicality, driven by those living at the frontlines.

These experiences brought into relief how important it is to make big bets to break and transform consumption, value, and culture. Incredible people are building pathways (lifeboats) to the future on this swiftly tilting planet, but those with the power to change course continue to drive us toward collapse. I’m heartened by those working around this system. Onwards.

—Natalia Vasquez

4. Connecting with inspiration and support beyond your area might be critical...

‍Imagine you could float above New York during Climate Week and take stock of all the people, ideas, and resources present in the city at the same time. Much of what we need to address the challenges of the Climate Era already exists. But it’s extraordinarily difficult for various pieces of the puzzle to find each other—if they even know they’re there at all.

This year, I was privileged to hear about a set of amazing projects being pioneered across Latin America by the first cohort of The Rockefeller Foundation’s Big Bets Fellowship; I was grateful to moderate an energetic conversation among sustainability leaders from the global business travel sector; and I was excited to be in the room as teams from some of the world’s leading businesses advanced their ambitions for climate action by asking themselves seemingly impossible questions.

But what if all these people had met each other, and perhaps helped each other? And what if that happened not just by happenstance, but by design, so that people who perhaps aren’t even aware of each others’ potential can find each other faster and more meaningfully? What might that have unlocked? My takeaway from NYCW is this: We need to design better ways to build the jigsaw puzzle to bring these changemakers together—and fast.

—Alex Gallafent

5. …but exploring new ideas and relationships internally is just as important‍

During our Space Between Urgent and Impossible session, focused on pushing past boundaries to find novel solutions, I was struck by the response from one of the teams. They realized that they never get together to talk about big or new ideas. We all spend plenty of time networking with others outside our organizations on the climate challenge, but maybe there is an opportunity to spend more time having conversations, building relationships, and exploring bigger ideas inside. These conversations benefit from being structured and intentional—a safe space where new thinking can emerge outside the constraints of short term considerations.

—Tim Brown

‍Did we miss you at Climate Week? Need help kickstarting a climate project of your own? Get in touch.

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Much of our work at IDEO is framed by the idea of the Climate Era: that we are now in a fixed period of time when humanity's understanding of the challenges of the climate crisis is still matched by its ability to meet them.

It’s helping us better understand fundamental biological processes like protein folding, and bringing the open source movement to human gene editing. But as designers and technologists, our focus extends beyond the data to consider how AI can impact the human experience. We are committed to harnessing AI’s potential to not only improve processes, but also to enhance lives.

William Gibson once said, "The future is already here–it's just not evenly distributed." This is particularly true in healthcare, where the adoption and impact of AI varies widely. In some health systems, experimentation with AI is already having an effect on patient and provider experiences. In others, it's primarily a tool to cut back office costs. And in far too many, it’s nowhere at all. Our goal is to smooth this distribution a bit, uncovering the benefits of AI that can address the core human need to be seen, understood, and cared for. Here are some key applications that could move that effort forward.

Close observation 

AI’s ability to be omnipresent, listening, and interpreting is one of its most promising capabilities. Tools like Abridge Inside are transforming patient interactions by summarizing provider-patient conversations and generating care plans in real-time, directly integrating them into medical records. This kind of ambient documentation is changing how both providers and patients relate to care visits by reducing the administrative burden on providers and improving patient understanding of their care plans with clearer and more tailored visit summaries.

In skilled nursing facilities, where high patient-to-staff ratios are common, Care.ai’s Smart Care Facility Platform uses ambient intelligent sensors to monitor patients closely, reducing the workload on healthcare providers. This technology is a step toward integrating AI into clinical settings, allowing for more efficient and personalized care, and making sure that no patients fall through the cracks.

Early combinations of AI and robotics have pushed the possibilities of who—or what—might be able to deliver care. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Boston Dynamics, MIT, and Brigham and Women’s Hospital used a Spot robot equipped with sensors to remotely monitor patient vitals, with the goal of reducing healthcare worker exposure to COVID-19.

We’ve seen similar innovations in more everyday settings, hinting at what might happen when these kinds of ideas scale. At the MIT Media Lab, the Fluid Interfaces group has developed a conversational memory aid designed to assist with daily tasks. This device, which works on commercially-available hardware, offers a glimpse into the future of AI-driven, unobtrusive memory augmentation. It’s a small but powerful example of how AI could be used to support cognitive functions in everyday life, improving everyone’s ability to navigate logistics and to make more meaningful social connections.

At IDEO, we’ve experimented with similar AI in more informal settings. Our colleague Danny DeRuntz developed a Slackbot that helps users catch up on conversations by summarizing messages and even creating whimsical “sauces” that capture the week’s vibe. While this may seem light-hearted, it underscores the potential for AI to bridge gaps in communication and reduce the cognitive load in professional environments.

Hyper dynamic tools

Healthcare has long been plagued by poorly-implemented and difficult-to-use technology, particularly when it comes to electronic health records (EHRs). AI is now driving the development of hyper-dynamic tools that can adapt to the needs of individual patients and providers, from device technicians to specialized neurologists. Epic, the premier EHR provider, is currently trialing more than 60 AI-driven use cases across health systems, with the ambition to significantly improve the user experience by making EHRs more responsive and less cumbersome. Of course, efforts like this to significantly decrease the time burden of using EHRs have been tried before, with very mixed success.

Startups are also using AI to address healthcare’s continued reliance on outdated technology. Tennr, for example, is using AI to interpret and send faxes—which are still used surprisingly often in healthcare—while Hippocratic AI is automating workflow calls like discharging patients, remote monitoring of health conditions, and pre-procedure preparation that would otherwise require human intervention. These innovations suggest that new technology may even be able to solve some of the problems created by older ones.

Beyond healthcare, we’ve seen AI used in similar ways to tackle everyday tasks. Google’s Duplex AI is a prime example, capable of autonomously booking appointments by making phone calls that sound eerily human. This kind of task-specific AI reflects the adaptability we hope to see in healthcare tools, enabling them to meet the unique needs of each user. Importantly, this use case is from 2018, long before our current and much more capable crop of AI tools came to market. Imagine Duplex being applied for appointment scheduling, medical supply chain tracking, and even up-to-date clinical fact-checking. We are likely close to a future of customizable, or potentially even fully-DIY tools that can take on some of our daily health tasks.

Enhancing empathy

One of AI’s most human, and therefore most controversial, potentials lies in enhancing empathy within healthcare. Studies have shown that AI tools, like ChatGPT, can often deliver more compassionate responses than human physicians. This raises important questions about how scalable machine empathy could be and what it means for patient care.

In simulation environments, AI is being used to model entire hospital systems, where each staff member and patient is represented by an AI agent. These simulations can not only improve AI performance, but also reveal the emotional pressures of a workflow and the impact of misaligned incentives, offering new insights into how we design and manage healthcare systems.

Cultural projects have also explored the concept of AI-driven empathy. For example, Laurie Anderson worked with the University of Adelaide’s Australian Institute for Machine Learning to create a Lou Reed AI that replicates her late husband’s voice and style. While acknowledging that this bot is not her husband, she finds value in the creative collaboration she gets from writing with it. Although this might seem like its applications are a long way from healthcare, this project highlights AI’s potential to engage human empathy through emulating personality and style—an area that could have profound implications for patient interactions in the future.

Escalating negotiations

The automation of prior authorization processes is a double-edged sword. AI can streamline the filing process, making it faster and more efficient, but speed can come at a cost. The recent revelations about Cigna's use of AI to deny claims in mere seconds is a concrete example of how AI can be used to prioritize efficiency over compassion, leading to significant concerns about denial of patient care.

Similar dynamics have played out in consumer markets. Amazon’s Hands Off the Wheel program, which automated pricing negotiations between Amazon and third party sellers, led to significant changes within the company, including layoffs and a restructuring of teams. AI-driven automation can fundamentally alter business processes, a trend that could similarly impact healthcare as AI continues to evolve.

AI is even transforming the landscape in businesses like telemarketing. The Jolly Roger Telephone Co. uses AI to keep telemarketers on the line, wasting their time and protecting consumers from unwanted calls. This creative use of AI highlights the ethical considerations that come with automation—questions that are equally relevant in the high-stakes world of healthcare.

Custom weirdness

Personalized medicine has long been a buzzword, but AI is pushing the boundaries of what personalization can truly mean. Gene therapies, for example, have seen breakthroughs with 36 FDA-approved treatments and hundreds more in the pipeline. AI’s ability to better map our bodies and molecules promises even more tailored treatments, but it also raises important questions about safety, responsibility, and the ethics of such deeply-personalized interventions.

In mental health, companies like Tripp VR are using AI to create hyper-personalized, generative meditation experiences. While this might not appeal to everyone, it demonstrates the breadth of care opportunities that AI is opening up, particularly in areas like anxiety and chronic pain management.

Beyond the clinic, platforms like Character.ai, where users create and interact with custom AI personalities, highlight how quickly consumers are adopting AI-driven personalization. This trend could spill over into healthcare, where patients might soon expect—and demand—highly-personalized AI presenting care solutions.

At the fringes of this trend are biohacking enthusiasts who are pushing the limits of personalized health. Some are experimenting with gene-edited bacteria that produce alcohol instead of lactic acid (preventing cavities), or antibiotics that kill competing oral bacteria. While these innovations are not yet FDA-approved, they signal a potential Cambrian explosion of personalized health interventions driven by consumer demand.

The road ahead

AI has the potential to be a true collaborator in healthcare, helping practitioners see patterns across modalities that are not visible to individual people. It is our responsibility as designers, technologists, and healthcare professionals to ensure that AI tools are developed with the needs and perspectives of all stakeholders in mind.

As we move forward, we must embrace experimentation and collaboration, ensuring that AI not only enhances healthcare efficiency but also contributes to a more humane and empathetic system. The future of AI in healthcare is promising, but it requires us to actively engage with these tools and guide their development to serve the greater good.

For us, that means leaning into human-centered design, and putting people and their needs at the center of the process. That’s how we work with our clients to build desirable and responsible futures, and to understand how our technology choices will impact participants in the health system. It’s also why we believe so strongly in co-design, working alongside the folks we’re building new health tools for, as we did with teenagers in California to build Soluna, a mental wellbeing app for the state’s young people, which we made in partnership with Kooth. Because when we’re building health tools with emerging technologies like AI, it’s critical that we go beyond doing no harm, and build the right solutions for patients and providers. 

(This piece was adapted from a talk delivered at the American Medical Informatics Association®  Clinical Informatics conference.)

AI is broadening how we derive meaning from data, offering new perspectives that were previously inaccessible to most.

As designers who love toys and games, we set out to explore how we might reduce the environmental impact across the whole industry.

The toy industry’s environmental impact is the flip side of the joy of play. The $90 billion toy industry is a highly plastic-intensive sector, using 40 tons of plastic for every $1 million in revenue. It contributes significantly to the 11 million tons of plastic dumped into the world’s oceans each year, causing widespread damage to marine life and ecosystems.

If the toy industry can reduce its plastic usage by half, it would mean millions of tons less plastic entering the oceans, mitigating the harmful effects on marine life and helping to preserve ocean health. It would also be an opportunity for the industry to serve as a beacon, setting a new standard and demonstrating that significant reductions in plastic usage are achievable and impactful. 

We’re looking to help create a transformative leap that propels our industry forward. That means we need to design better play experiences that are inherently more sustainable, joyful, and viable for kids, families, and the companies that manufacture them. “Consumers are asking for it, and toy companies are starting to feel the need to do something about it,” says Lynn Rosenblum, Professor of Toy Design at Otis College of Art & Design. “They are finally understanding that they must take urgent action.”

To take action of our own, we conducted an internal design project to understand how kids and parents feel about their toys, what would make more sustainable toys a viable option, and how we could not just make a non-plastic alternative, but something even better. We spent four weeks with parents and their kids, as well as industry experts who are working to address this design challenge. We also rapidly prototyped our ideas both digitally and physically, turning concepts into testable experiences the kids could play with. With their help, we surfaced insights that point the way to a better future for the toy industry—and the planet. 

‍Sustainability alone won’t sell toys.

Most families do not view green toys with the same pride as they do STEM toys. (Not yet, at least.) To make sustainable toys more appealing, they will need to provide additional value, like affordability, enhanced educational benefits, or support for children's development. Jessica, a mother of a 5 year-old, told us that to her, the ideal definition of sustainability would be toys that last long enough for all of her kids to play with them, and when they’ve outgrown them, the chance to pass them on to another family. “When I think of sustainability I think of getting a lot of use more than the sustainability of the environment,” she says. 

‍Plastic lasts longer than kids’ attention spans

Families often prioritize durability when they’re buying toys. But according to a study with  2,000 UK families, parents estimated that 15 percent of toys their kids receive for Christmas are neglected within days, 23 percent within a month, and 50 percent within six months. Children often tire of specific toys long before they wear out. So unless we can increase the amount of playtime with toys from the outset, they’re destined for a quick trip to the landfill.

‍Children love natural materials

As 10-year-old Jude was playing with some of our prototypes, he told us, “Plastic toys are a scam.”  He preferred his wooden toy train tracks because “They won’t break.” Jude and many of the other kids we talked with were clear that they preferred the tactile and sensory experiences of natural materials, even if they aren’t consciously aware of their material preferences when they select toys. Often, the dominance of plastic in the marketplaces is less about kids' preferences—it's about the convenience and affordability that plastic provides.

Being resourceful is fun and sustainable—but you can’t unwrap it

Children love to make their own toys, repurposing Amazon boxes as backdrops or using face masks as doll dresses. They’re often happy just coming up with their own ways to play. But, as Jessica said to us, “The grandparents just want to see them open a present.” Extended families tend to prefer buying a new physical toy that can be wrapped and unboxed. The surprise and reveal are part of the appeal. At the same time, it's worth noting that there is a thriving, if informal, secondhand market in places like Facebook or Buy Nothing where parents and children are perfectly happy with pre-loved toys.

Nixing is easier than fixing

Most toys are designed to be disposable, fostering a culture where repair is uncommon. As Jessica told us, “In today’s culture, everything is just thrown away because it’s so cheaply made. It’s cheaper to buy a new one. If you are buying quality toys then it makes sense to invest to maintain, to take care of it, to repair it rather than throwing it away.” Unlike high-quality sustainable toys, many plastic toys lack durability and repairability, making them more likely to be discarded.

From insights to action

How, though, do these insights translate to opportunity areas for toy companies, and joyful and more sustainable toys for families? We created a set of quick  concepts to help us learn quickly about how we can have an impact on the future of sustainable toy design. Here’s what some of of our prototypes look like, and the opportunities they helped us uncover.

Create non-plastic toys with superior functionality

There’s a big opportunity in designing  trendy yet sustainable toys using alternative materials, and enhancing their appeal by incorporating vibrant colors, exciting designs, and interactive features. By emphasizing durability and engaging play experiences, we can make non-plastic toys the preferred choice for both children and families. Picture a unique collection of toys crafted from natural materials sourced from the very environments where kids love to play, like seaweed beach toys, or bamboo car tracks.

Design toys for circular play models

Another option? Creating systems to make existing toys function within a circular economy to minimize their footprint. Introduce easy-to-use, repairable, re-sellable, and shareable toys designed for longevity and multiple users, built on children's natural play behaviors like constructive and collaborative play. These systems should seamlessly integrate with parents' existing rituals and day-to-day activities, making sustainable play convenient and practical for families. Think new platforms that transform toy repair into a fun and educational experience, or a second-hand toy purchasing experience where kids and parents can discover gently used toys ready for new adventures.

Offer play as a service

Revolutionize play with toys designed for maximum imaginative impact and minimal environmental footprint. By embracing alternative business models beyond the traditional pay-for-product approach, we can unlock new ways for kids to engage in meaningful and sustainable play. Focusing on access rather than ownership to reduce new toy production, minimize waste, and extend play time or use technology to breathe new life into existing toys through AI-enabled or VR experiences. 

Already, we’re building concepts and new toys based on these opportunities, and we’re excited to make them real. If you want to work together to build a more sustainable future for toys, get in touch. 

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This project was informed through conversations with numerous experts, and families all around the US. We're grateful to them for their contributions.

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While the toy industry has thrived by delivering joy and play to kids worldwide, the scale of plastic production has led to real environmental challenges.

Designing emerging tech is different from traditional product design. Much of the time when we do user research, our participants are already kind of familiar with the interaction models we’re presenting. They know that a fob unlocks a car, or how to type queries into a search engine, or how a toaster usually works. But when you’re working with a new technology, potential users have no known reference points, which makes it much harder for them to know how to use it in a way that provides real value. Think about early drivers trying to figure out how to crank-start a model T, when their previous transportation was a horse. 

With emerging technology, wild rumors about the technology precede widespread adoption, and the gap in understanding how to use it can feel enormous. That makes providing a user experience people love, the most important piece of the product’s design.

It can also be the trickiest part. After all, you’re designing something nobody has ever used before—not even you. At IDEO, we’re really familiar with this ambiguous place—the space between a new technology everyone is excited about, and real products that provide real value for their users. We’ve spent a lot of our history there, creating everything from early computer mice to IKEA’s kitchen of the future to dancing robots.  Here are some simple rules we follow when we’re trying to get from unknown technology to products people love.

Lean into co-design

Designing with potential users helps us understand how people will respond to a new technology.

In the last year or so, IDEO’s Play Lab dug deep with Gen Z users to test out what they actually want from AI-enabled products. Often, companies assume that if it’s new and it’s possible, young people will be into it. We wanted to test those assumptions, creating concepts like an AI concierge that could plan your trip, or a creative problem-solver that could hand you the solution when you get stuck. 

Instead of fully building them out, we made really early prototypes that let them test the idea of the product, rather than a fully-built product itself. That was enough for them to understand the experience, and their feedback was clear: They want useful tools that take care of hassles, but they still want life’s messy moments. Tech is not a solution to their relationship issues, and they don’t want it to be creative for them. They want tools that help them maintain their humanity, not supplant it. The Gen Zs we worked with then helped us rethink the ideas to fit their needs. Our final designs and insights were much stronger because of it.

Insights like these, which are hard to come by without co-design, can uncover what users really want, long before a product hits the market, helping you make better investments with your development dollars. 

Break norms

A major purpose of emerging technology? Providing new value to people through new user experiences. If we stick with existing interaction paradigms, we’re missing the point.

The purpose of XR is to overlay reality on our reality, or to take us into new realities. If we’re designing a website inside of VR goggles, that seems like an underwhelming use of the technology. We should take advantage of its capabilities—the fact that it’s a big open space where we can have interactive experiences, and that the audio can come from all around us, and that it's social and connective with people all around the world. If we’re just designing a flat website, we’re making a black and white tv in a color tv world. 

Similarly, in the generative AI space, everything is a chatbot. That’s because we’re used to interacting with intelligent things by talking to them. 

But look around, and you might discover a whole category of people trying to rethink how we can interact with intelligent machines. AI hardware companies are showing us how there are so many new possibilities of how to use technology in our daily lives (some more successfully than others). Brilliant Labs’s glasses that can translate what you hear; Limitless’s wearable pendant, which remembers the details of your workday; Meta’s AI glasses that allow you to ask questions about what you see. All of them create new user experiences—and the best ones are very different from what our existing gadgets are designed to do.

Embrace unexpected collaborators

Here’s an idea for you: Bring a group of creatives—musicians, electrical engineers, designers—into your emerging technology lab. Ask them to experiment with the technology you’re developing.

There is a long history of creatives helping technologists unlock new ideas and possibilities for what the technology might do.

Take John Cage, the avant-garde composer who collaborated with engineers and technologists, particularly at Bell Labs in the 1960s. Cage wasn’t an engineer, but he was a visionary artist who explored the boundaries of music and sound. His approach to music was deeply experimental, and he often used technology as a tool to create new forms of expression. His creative explorations led to tangible developments in electronic music, influencing the design of synthesizers, advancements in sound manipulation, and the foundation of interactive and generative music. Cage’s work encouraged technologists to think outside their usual constraints and explore new creative potentials within their inventions.

IKEA did something similar, when it decided to make the kitchen of the future. Years ago, they asked us and a group of students to explore the social, technological, and demographic forces that would impact our relationship with food in 2025. IDEO took their research and designs and built out a full concept kitchen that could help guide product development into the future.

Focus on design from the outset

Too often, companies focus on what they can build, rather than what they should. You can make the most cutting-edge technology in the world, but if your customers don’t like it, you don’t have a product. Bring them into early stages of the development—rather than as a panicked afterthought when you might discover that customers aren’t adopting what you made.

That doesn’t mean you have to invest your entire budget into speculative design work that might not pay off; after all, you may not even be sure the technology itself is feasible. But at a minimum, design can help you understand where technology might go so you can ask the right questions, consider what comes next at each development milestone, and make a plan for when and how designers, design researchers, and product people can help you think about which areas of the technology will be most valuable to users and should be developed.

When Willow set out to redesign the breast pump experience, the startup tapped IDEO and Function Engineering as partners, creating a cross-functional team of researchers, industrial designers, and mechanical engineers. Together, they uncovered mothers’ unment needs, and designed and engineered a more human-centered version of a device that hadn’t changed much in 25 years. Now, instead of being stuck shirtless, tethered to a wall, mothers have the option of a cordless breast pump that fits under their clothes.

Prototype to widen your aperture

When the founders behind education startup Ethiqly came to us to create new tools for students and teachers, they didn’t ask, “How can we use AI in the classroom?” They looked at the bigger picture: “How does gen AI change what it means to be a student?”

Then, we jumped into prototyping to test the capabilities of the technology. We created interactive prototypes, building generative AI mini apps that let us test key research questions. Could gen AI help teachers give students feedback more effectively at scale? Could providing students with prompts help them get past the hurdle of a blank page? The prototypes we made suggested feedback that teachers could choose to share, and encouraged students to interrogate their own ideas. That’s what learning how to be a good writer is all about; it’s not just generating an essay, it’s digging into and uncovering your own perspective and what you want to say. So that’s what the final product we designed helps you do—uncover your voice. Prototyping allows us to see the possibilities outside the constraints of what we’ve imagined. It lets the technology tell us what it can do, which uncovers new possibilities for how we might use it.

‍Make a vision, but don’t get too attached

Visions keep us from wandering aimlessly, which is a good thing. But when you’re working in the completely new and speculative environment of emerging technology, getting too attached to an early vision can limit your progress. 

Think about Large Language Models. Entrepreneurs in the space have been really serious about building chatbots, like some version of the AI love interest in the movie “Her.” And sure, there seems to be a market for romantic partner AIs—but if those companies had stuck with just that, they would have missed out on ground-breaking enterprise products, educational products, and more. From the outside looking on the journeys of LLM startups, it seems that they realized they needed to prioritize what their customers want—which is a little different from the Hollywood vision.

The possibilities for what we can create with emerging technologies are endless (that’s what makes this the most fun job ever), but it’s also what makes it hard. It’s part speculative, it’s technical, and it’s creative. It comes with ambiguity, and long timelines. Even those of us making it don’t always know exactly what it might become. But by leaning into the design process, and following guidelines like these, we can make it a lot easier to iterate our way to undiscovered gold mines of innovative ideas and new possibilities. 

Want to explore these ideas further? Reach out to emergent@ideo.com.

Many of the companies I talk to ask me some version of the same question: There’s this amazing new technology. We’re excited to adopt it to create a really great product. But how do we make it stick?

I help organizations cut through complexity by shaping how they show up, through brand strategy, identity, and storytelling.

Working at the intersection of brand and business, I bring an editorial eye and a bias toward making—turning ideas into tangible experiences that people can understand, trust, and believe in.

My work spans government, healthcare, financial services, media, and consumer goods, from launching Gen Z-focused ventures to building innovation labs and reimagining legacy brands. I relish moments of ambiguity and enjoy translating across teams, perspectives, and priorities to move ideas forward.

I started my career in editorial and digital design, shaping cross-platform experiences and identity systems in publishing and agency environments. That foundation still shapes how I work today: I’m detail-oriented, collaborative, and overreliant on the Oxford comma. I hold a BFA in Visual Communication from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

For 25 years, I've asked the same question: Who does this design exclude—and what are we going to do about it?

My work spans human-centered strategy, inclusive design, and qualitative research, with clients ranging from Microsoft, Google, and Verizon to the National Science Foundation, and San Francisco Unified School District.

Before IDEO, I taught elementary school in East Palo Alto and spent a decade doing design work with social service organizations—where I learned firsthand what it costs people when systems are built without them in mind.

I am currently writing User Error, a nonfiction book about digital access and the design decisions behind it. I live in Oakland, California.

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My expertise spans brand, communication, and product design across tech, education, the arts, and social impact.

I believe great work demands both high-level vision and obsessive attention to detail, and only happens through collaboration.

I bring an inclusive, hands-on approach and a deep understanding of business, which enables me to consistently deliver excellence while always asking why.

Before joining IDEO, I worked at the brand firms Pentagram and VSA Partners. I began my career as a designer, leading teams at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Milwaukee Art Museum. I hold an MFA in graphic design from Maryland Institute College of Art and a BFA in communication design from the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design, and have taught at some of the best design schools in the US.

I am responsible for IDEO’s long-term success in China and working with clients to use design as a tool to enable growth. Specifically, I have helped Chinese companies design holistic brand solutions through the development of their products, communication, services, and innovation teams, and I have helped multinationals expand their presence and influence in China.

I advise global leaders on developing China-led innovation and capabilities.

In over 15 years in IDEO Shanghai, I have worked on projects that use design to elevate the quality of the experience of healthcare products and services, streamline processes that increase productivity, create spaces and programs that promote and enable inclusive communities, and build next generation mobility solutions that are planet-positive.

Before joining IDEO, I worked at Philips Electronics and the Electrolux Group in Italy, the Netherlands, and Singapore on a number of breakthrough commercial products. I am a member of the Young President Organization in Shanghai.

Most AI products today are built for work—a space with clear problems and established systems. One founder noticed a gap: personal life is messier, harder to systematize, and mostly left behind by the AI boom. So she built Cue, a personal AI that lives inside iMessage and group chats, to go where the other tools haven't.

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In this episode, Becca Carroll, IDEO's Chief Strategy Officer, talks with Sida Li, co-founder and CEO of Shared Context Lab, about staying anchored to a human need while the technology around her keeps changing shape, why she treats her business model with the same rigor she'd bring to a product, and what it feels like to build a company at this particular, disorienting moment in AI.

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The conversation also gets into how Sida makes design decisions: the language Cue uses to describe itself, the tradeoffs behind building inside iMessage instead of a new app, and a real story about a business idea that didn’t pan out.

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This is the second in a two-part series profiling founders from IDEO's Startups-in-Residence program. The first conversation is with Johannes Seemann, founder of Sooner, on designing GenAI for the emotional side of money.

Most personal financial tools are built to run the numbers and optimize towards a budget. While that works for some, most people experience money as a lived relationship that does not neatly fit into a spreadsheet. Johannes Seemann and Becca Carroll discuss why money is emotional before it is mathematical, and what a human-centered approach to building a generative AI financial product looks like in practice.

Mina Seetharaman talks with Scott Shigeoka, author of Seek and Head of Curiosity Cultivation at the Eames Institute, about what distinguishes genuinely curious leadership from performative curiosity, how power dynamics shape curiosity, and why practicing curiosity can restore energy rather than drain it.

Mina Seetharaman talks with David Epstein, author of Inside the Box and Range, about why total freedom often produces average work, how leaders can design useful limits on purpose, and what organizations such as General Magic and Pixar reveal about the relationship between boundaries and creativity.