Money works differently in communities traditionally excluded from formal banking, which makes designing products that really serve their needs a very different kind of challenge. People who live in the last mile often prefer cash because it’s physical. They can see it, touch it, and access it at any time.

While digital money offers many benefits, such as securely sending money over long distances and accessing new forms of credit, many don’t trust it because the places where they can access digital currency have often been too far away.

In 2017, over 500 million adults lived more than three miles from a financial access point in eight emerging markets studied by the Gates Foundation. This may not sound like much of a barrier, but for those living in the last mile, it means having to close their shops, lose a day of earnings, arrange family care, and pay for travel, which can be time-consuming and difficult, especially during rainy seasons. For low-income people, the inaccessibility of financial services has been a deal-breaker for adopting digital money. On the flip side, banks, telecoms, and other companies struggled to reach these customers because their products were not inclusively designed for them, and their distribution models failed to scale in rural areas.

Amid these myriad challenges, IDEO and the Gates Foundation saw an opportunity to introduce innovative ways to provide access to digital financial services even in the most remote areas of the world. And to make bold new bets: Could we design new digital experiences centered around the financial needs of people in the last mile? What would happen if we mobilized hundreds of actors to develop new ways to address financial access at the last mile? What if we took the most exciting financial innovations that worked in East Africa and piloted them in South Asia—and vice versa?

Working with more than 70 partners, including local startups, corporations, including Google, Unilever, Telenor, Standard Chartered, and BNI, as well as IDEO.org’s Women & Money program, LMM adopted a collaborative, ecosystem approach to drive and scale new digital financial products and systems.

A few of the life-changing innovations launched by LMM and its partners include:

• Finja’s intuitive small-business app that helps micro-merchants in Pakistan access flexible, interest-avoiding Islamic credit  to order products from fast-moving consumer goods companies like Unilever. Finja now serves 45,000 merchants and reaches 10.2 million customers.
  ‍
• Accessing government benefits can be a challenge, especially when it’s through a mobile phone, so IDEO helped Indian startup Haqdarshak develop a robust digital experience for its 52,000 community agents to facilitate access for low-income people. The agent network—70 percent of whom are women—now serves more than 7.6 million families and has unlocked $2.2 billion in social benefits for those who need it most.
  ‍
• Making micro-credit nearly instantaneous was a solution that startup Kuunda offered to financial agents in Tanzania. IDEO helped adapt the product to deliver working capital for merchants in Pakistan. Today, Kuunda continues to grow across markets in Africa, totaling 6.1 million active users and distributing $1.1 billion in loans globally.   

While the LMM program officially concluded in 2024, lessons, tools, and case studies from the program are accessible on IDEO’s Financial Futures website. Those looking to catalyze equity and inclusion in digital financial services for the last mile can consult LMM’s Financial Confidence Playbook, the open-source Digital Confidence Toolkit (created in collaboration with Google), or the Gender Evaluation Framework, among other helpful resources.

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Over 1.3 billion people worldwide in poor and rural areas are excluded from formal financial services, including savings accounts, credit lines, and insurance, making it harder for them to move out of poverty.

34M

underserved users reached by 100+ new financial products, pilots, and prototypes

70+ LMM partners

including Google, Unilever, Grab, Standard Chartered, Cargill, Airtel, Celo Foundation, and BNI

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Multinational CPGs excel at creating popular, mass-market products for large countries. When they enter smaller countries like Peru, they often parachute their brands onto store shelves and skip consumer product testing altogether, largely relying on brand recognition to drive sales. This oversight presented Alicorp and IDEO with an opportunity: flip the script and invite young Peruvian women to work together with them to create a new hair care brand from scratch. Over the course of a four-year transformational journey, IDEO worked closely with Alicorp, adopting a “learn by doing” approach to foster a culture of innovation, launch a new brand, and drive growth for the company through consumer-centric design.

The collaboration began with an inspirational trip 10,000 miles away to Seoul, South Korea, the epicenter of global beauty trends. To expand their thinking, the Alicorp/IDEO team received K-Pop glow-ups and explored other cutting-edge beauty experiences. They were inspired by the Korean market’s unwavering focus on meeting the particular hair care and skin needs of Korean women.

Back in Peru, the team conducted multiple rounds of in-depth interviews with young women, teenagers, beauty influencers, and experts across the country. They learned about their beauty goals, personal care routines, and “mixto” hair texture. They heard about women’s struggles with regional weather—the Andean region’s extreme dryness versus Lima’s humidity and the city’s hard water. The research revealed that Peruvian women wanted natural products that worked hard, wouldn’t harm their hair, and celebrated what made them unique. They wanted a brand that spoke to them honestly and authentically. That represented and empowered them. That didn’t overpromise, underdeliver, or hold up European and American beauty ideals that didn't resonate with Latin American women like the multinationals did.

Armed with these insights, the Alicorp/IDEO team developed tangible brand prototypes for women to respond to during successive rounds of user research, including in a beauty pop-up store in Lima. The team shared various bottle types, ingredient mixtures, and brand positioning options. Should the new brand’s personality be an outspoken feminist or a gal pal? Au naturel or sophisticated? The iterative feedback cycles informed everything from brand strategy and ingredient recommendations to product line-up, brand and product naming, launch strategy, and digital activations.

The final design, Amarás (“you will love”), is a personal care line that centers the needs and aspirations of Peruvian women. Hitting shelves in 2022, its shampoos and conditioners feature local, bio-diverse ingredients, including mangoes, macadamia nuts, and goldenberries, that help address the specific hair texture needs of women in LATAM and the climate realities of the Andean region. The brand’s launch campaign included TV and print ads featuring Peruvian models from every region as well as commissioned murals celebrating local beauty by artists across Peru. Most notably, the unapologetically authentic Peruvian hair care brand became a TikTok sensation, garnering over seven million organic views and more than 300 viral videos from enthusiastic new fans.

Three months after its launch, Amarás seized a 7.5 percent share of the personal care aisle—a remarkable goal it had set for year three.Since then, Alicorp has continued to expand its creative capabilities, designing personal care products tailored to the cultural and beauty needs of Latin American consumers.

Alicorp launched numerous successful brand extensions across its food and home care categories, but was unable to crack the $340M USD hair care product market in its home country of Peru.

7.5%

Amarás’ share of the Peruvian hair care market 3 months after launch—a goal Alicorp had set for year 3

7M+ organic views and 300+ organic fan videos

created on TikTok during Amarás’  launch campaign

Thirty years ago, China-based Jack Technology started as a home sewing machine manufacturer. A decade ago, the innovative global leader began investing in robotics and exploring AI, a decision that positioned it well to address today’s urgent need for smarter manufacturing solutions.

Believing that a new, strategically positioned sub-brand could draw in larger, more premium global manufacturing customers, Jack Technology and IDEO set out to understand their needs. IDEO began by visiting more than a dozen garment factories across China, Vietnam, and Bangladesh, conducting in-depth interviews with factory managers, industrial engineers, pattern-making leaders, and frontline workers. It soon became clear: the apparel manufacturing industry is at a critical juncture. The way apparel manufacturers navigate the promises of intelligent technology—while addressing deep-rooted structural issues like labor shortages and working conditions—will shape the industry's development for years to come.

For premium clothing brands, garment factory compliance and worker well-being are priorities when selecting production partners, so many owners proudly showcased their improvement efforts. They discussed investing in quieter machines and air conditioning, enhancing lighting, adding greenery, and implementing no-overtime policies. Amid rows of identical sewing stations, the IDEO team noticed small human gestures, such as a small vase of flowers. As one operator said, “I just want to uplift myself during work.”

The research helped IDEO identify a core opportunity for differentiation. Create human-centered products and services that further enhance working conditions in large apparel factories, strengthen their ability to attract and retain talent, and drive the industry toward a more sustainable future. Through multiple rounds of co-creation with the Jack Technology team and key apparel-sector stakeholders, a clear brand direction for Aitu began to take shape: “Smart Machines, Uplifting People.”

Guided by this human-centered ethos, IDEO helped build a comprehensive brand system for Aitu. The idea of “uplifting people” and showcasing garment workers’ professionalism and skill is expressed throughout all brand communications, the industrial design of its smart sewing machines, and the interaction and industrial design of a humanoid sewing robot.

In the eyes of factory workers, this is the new work experience Aitu brings to life. Compared with traditional bulky industrial machinery, the clean lines and soft edges of Aitu’s new AI-powered sewing machines feel more like the professional office tools found in bright, organized workplaces. Concave surfaces and soft materials diffuse glare from overhead lighting, reducing eye strain, while clear interaction logic and icon-based visuals accommodate operators with varying levels of skill and education. AI technology, seamlessly embedded in the machine’s core functions, automatically adjusts parameters for different fabrics and tasks, allowing operators to achieve high-precision results with less effort. A soft halo-like light glows whenever the AI-assisted function is active, fostering users’ trust in both the technology and the AI-powered sewing machine as a whole. When hundreds or thousands of Aitu machines are arranged together in a factory, the overall effect is a modern, professional, and high-end work environment.

Working closely with Aitu’s robotics team, IDEO’s final design challenge was to bring a human-machine collaboration to life through a full-scale AI robot, AI10. The robot has an elegant, biomimetic silhouette. Its fabric-like outer finish features design elements commonly found in garment making, such as cutting and stitching lines, giving the robot the approachable look and the feel of a skilled tailor companion who can assist with simple, repetitive tasks. When AI10 is in operation, a circular light ring gently pulses at the sides of the robot’s ears as well as on the paired sewing machine’s display screen, clearly signaling the robot’s activity to its human co-workers.

In September 2025, Jack Technology debuted its new Aitu brand, along with its first AI sewing machine and a humanoid robot prototype, at a launch event at Shanghai Tower and at the China International Sewing Machine & Accessories Show. IFA Berlin, Europe’s largest trade show for consumer electronics, honored Aitu with a Gold Award for AI Product Innovation for seamlessly integrating AI technology and industrial design. Jack Technology’s humanoid robot is expected to go into full-scale production in 2026.

Before AI, the apparel manufacturing industry had experienced little fundamental change since the invention of the lockstitch sewing machine nearly two centuries ago.

2025 Gold Award for AI Product Innovation

from IFA, the world’s largest home and consumer tech event

Alicorp has direct operations in Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Chile, manages export operations in more than 30 countries, and oversees over 150 brands. While its AlaCena sauces are ubiquitous in South America, the brand’s North American market primarily consisted of purchases made via Amazon by Peruvians living abroad. To help the CPG giant expand meaningfully and sustainably onto US grocery shelves—and achieve its ambitious $50 million retail sales goal in five years—Alicorp and IDEO collaborated on multiple projects over a two-year period. The partnership began in early 2020 with consumer research and product strategy, ultimately leading to the development of initial product branding, positioning for launch, and an in-market pilot in late 2021.

‍‍Through a combination of large-scale digital surveys and in-depth, in-person and remote research interviews, IDEO discovered that AlaCena’s Tari and Uchucuta’s hot sauce recipes resonated the most with US consumers. Made from native Aji Amarillo and Rocoto chili peppers ground using a traditional Andean “batán” technique, consumers appreciated their complex flavors and enjoyed how they enhanced, not overpowered, everyday foods like burgers and fries. The sauces’ authentic Peruvian culinary roots were also a key differentiator. In addition to consumers, IDEO consulted with industry experts—including executives from large-scale grocery chains and chief merchants of leading big-box stores—to explore retail and marketing trends and identify potential innovation partners for Alicorp in the US.

Based on the research, IDEO recommended a few changes to ensure a successful launch: Lead with the Tari brand, which was the most memorable and easiest to pronounce, and position it as an “everything sauce.” Change the packaging from a large plastic pouch to a smaller squeeze bottle to better align with consumers’ expectations and stand out on the inside of refrigerator doors. Adjust the product formulation to appeal to mainstream consumers looking for cleaner labels. And visually celebrate Tari’s Peruvian roots through bright colors, traditional textiles, and a llama, an animal closely associated with the Andes Mountains. In addition to these recommendations, IDEO provided a comprehensive go-to-market retail strategy that included potential US regions for launch, retail brokers, distributors, manufacturers, and R&D and pilot retail lab partners, as well as job descriptions for a new North American-based sales team.

While Alicorp worked on reformulation and packaging strategies, IDEO refined Tari’s initial branding strategy. Steeped in Peruvian aesthetics, the brand’s new look and feel featured a vibrant color palette, geometric patterns, and—of course—a friendly llama icon, which could also be found on all in-store point-of-sale items IDEO designed for Tari's pilot launch in late 2021.

The successful 12-week in-market pilot in Tom Thumb grocery stores gave Alicorp the confidence to have its in-house design team make the brand even bolder and more eye catching, and to launch two flavors, Amarillo Pepper and Rocoto Pepper, on Amazon and in over 50 retail stores in late 2024.

Since then, the popular sauces consistently rank among the top 50 percent of the fastest-selling products on US shelves, with 80 percent of sales revenue representing new business. In 2025, Tari expanded its offerings with three additional flavors: Zesty Verde, Tropical Kick, and Smoky Heat. Today, Tari is in transit to 3,000 major grocery stores, including Wegmans, Meijer, Central Market, and The Fresh Market, as well as available for purchase on Amazon.

Alicorp had a vision to expand its beloved and delicious hot sauces to the US market, but needed help fine-tuning the brand and product for an American audience.

3,000

major US grocers, including Wegmans and Meijer, have signed on to sell Tari hot sauces

80%

of Tari’s sales revenue represents new business, a significant expansion of the overall category

Ranked in the top 50%

of the fastest-selling products on US grocery shelves

And unlike things that have been around just as long—Pepsi Clear, the Delorean, the Discman—it’s just as relevant today, for making everything from medical devices to emerging technology products.

By making things tangible early, we can explore the edges of what a product could be, prove something that hasn’t been done before is possible, or reduce risk by strengthening an idea before investing in it.

Our maker-first approach applies to everything we do—even when we’re designing for a future we haven’t seen yet. Because if you can’t click it, touch it, taste it, smell it, or hear it—how can you believe in it? It’s how we designed the first mouse for Apple back in 1980, helped create the all-electric Ford-150 Lighting, and the method that guided our research into what Gen Z really wants from AI products. 

Here are five reasons we get tangible early and often. 

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To solve a problem

When we approach a new problem, our minds are swirling with possibilities. Immersing ourselves in tools, materials, and mindsets can inspire us—often unexpectedly—turning our nascent thoughts into cohesive ideas. Working with our hands is often faster and more rewarding than turning straight to spreadsheets, computer models, simulations or CAD, and can add a little confidence, too. 

When IDEO started a program with Pluto Pillow to reimagine the travel pillow, jumping right into 3D CAD modeling didn’t make any sense.

It’s hard to define what makes someone comfortable enough to fall asleep on an airplane. So many factors play a role in finding that perfect position. So we gathered tons of relevant materials—from different density foams to variations of fabric softness—and kicked things off by using this array as inspiration. The result was dozens of simple prototypes that helped us identify and explore key themes we knew this new travel pillow would need to address to resonate with consumers; things like packability, cleanliness, re-positioning, and privacy.

To learn and test

How could this work? How might we interact with this? How do these parts fit together? The act of making lets us learn by doing, kick off conversations, and answer tough questions. Whether we’re making a wireframe, a mechanism, or formulas in a spreadsheet, tangibility accelerates our learning.  

In our decade-long relationship with the Ford Motor Company, we built numerous vehicles ranging from rough truck-shaped 80/20 frames to fully-custom commuter vans. These test beds of varying fidelity let us explore LOTS of new ideas—from maximizing storage space, laying out reconfigurable seating, or providing real-time progress communication along a route. Whether it was a big screen digitally tied to a seat and steering wheel to test a new driving experience, or stadium seating and a live progress map in a ride-share commuter van, getting tangible allowed us to test our ideas at the right level of fidelity, and learn what was working and resonating with our audience quickly and efficiently. 

To prove something is possible

When we’re solving really hard and complex problems, viable solutions often feel too daunting to even consider. But by making something, we can break these problems down into more manageable parts—be it a node in a complex network, a critical screen in a workflow, or a complicated part of an interaction. Thus we can explore things we might have dismissed as impossible—and prove a potential solution is worth continued exploration. 

IDEO worked closely with a pharmaceutical company to develop a first-of-its-kind autoinjector, an easy-to-use system that delivers a variety of drug products to people suffering from autoimmune diseases and other ailments. These complex mechanical devices rely on springs to do a lot of work: inserting the needle, pushing the drug into the body subcutaneously, and safely retracting the needle for disposal. IDEO built hundreds of prototypes to prove we could use two springs to accomplish these tasks, starting by repurposing simple found objects, then developing custom 3D printed parts to prove out specific functionality, and finally creating thousands of injection-molded prototype devices to convince ourselves and our partner that our design was robust and reliable. The result is a product our partner not only uses to deliver multiple drugs to a wide array of patients, it is the delivery device for three out of four of their best-selling drugs, which account for nearly $15 billion in annual revenue.

To try specifics and reduce risk

We often ask our clients to place big bets on our designs—both financial and strategic. Making something early on can help everyone test the risky or complex parts of a design, building consensus and confidence that it’s the right answer before investing too much time, energy, or money. Picture a new retail interaction, click-through prototypes of a workflow, or a functional mechanism that demonstrates a core functionality of a complex product. 

This was particularly helpful on a project we did with Teal Health. Cervical cancer screening saves lives. But the tests are uncomfortable at best and inaccessible at most, and screening rates have been on the decline, Teal came to IDEO for help designing a device and testing experience that would allow users of all body types to safely and accurately collect a sample at home—and be inclusive for anyone with a cervix. The wand was incredibly challenging to design, as the user has to find their cervix, collect the sample, and remove the wand without contaminating it on other parts of the body—all without looking and probably while standing. Considering the complexity of the task, we knew it would be critical for Teal to test the design in real people. In an initial study with 220 participants varying in age, race, socioeconomic status, and geography, Teal found that not only were participants able to successfully self-collect samples, they also preferred our design over the speculum, the device doctors typically use during a screening. Now, Teal has launched a nationwide clinical trial and is on the path to FDA approval, not to mention its ultimate goal, catching cervical cancer earlier and saving lives.

To tell stories

When we are designing the future, we have to find ways to help people experience something that doesn’t exist yet. Sometimes that means renting a warehouse to build out a full retail space and actually go shopping in the future; sometimes it’s a life-size game of chutes and ladders that helps admissions officers understand how complex the college application process can actually be. Making allows us to tell the story of a better future state, and inspires our clients to design that future alongside us. 

It’s hard to use schematics and spreadsheets to show the executives of a supersonic flight company what the customer experience of sitting in the cabin will actually feel like. So we built our clients at Boom Supersonic a full-scale prototype out of two by fours and plywood, adorned with foam core walls and custom-machined foam seats. When those executives can actually sit in the seats, walk around, and even feel what it would be like to visit the plane bathroom, the future aircraft experience comes to life in a whole new way. When you layer on actual flight moments like boarding, beverage service, and in-flight entertainment by leveraging VR headsets, the future becomes so tangible and real that everyone can get behind making this new aircraft a reality. 

Stuck working to solve a problem of your own? Prototyping can start with something as small as a sketch or a folded piece of paper—even if what you’re making is the size of a jet. All you have to do is start making.

At IDEO, we have a classic saying: Never show up to a meeting without a prototype. And unlike things that have been around just as long—Pepsi Clear, the Delorean, the Discman—it’s just as relevant today, for making everything from medical devices to emerging technology products.

Some of these aren't words we hear a lot about AI, particularly not in online conversations. Instead, when we conducted an experiment to synthesize general sentiment about AI, trends, and emerging AI case studies, we found a mixed review. 

Posts about the rabbit r1, HumaneAi pin, and other AI assistants offer enthusiasm, but also skepticism and concern. Popular technology Youtuber Marques Brownlee titled his review of the Humane Ai pin “The Worst Product I've Ever Reviewed... For Now.” But some commenters were really positive. One wrote, “If someone can make an AI OS that works like this rabbit r1 demo, there’s another empire waiting to be built.” On Character.ai’s TikTok account, people most frequently commented about feeling an obsessive love for the app, or even an addiction. 

Different people have different needs and expectations, and the future of AI is not one-size-fits-all—or even custom in the way we understand it today. Instead, it will be defined by the proliferation of personalized, adaptive, and specialized solutions to a broad range of needs defined for each individual user. Today, users turn to AI assistants to explore, with an understanding that the outputs need to be reviewed with a critical eye. Widespread adoption of AI assistants in everyday life will require that users can have confidence in their output and actions.

To succeed, we believe these products will need to be five things—intuitive, social, trusted, multimodal, and nurturing.

With some inspiration from products we admire on the market, and signals about what’s coming, let's explore some early concept provocations for how each of these principles could make AI feel great to use and deliver on its promise—in the near-term and farther down the line. 

Intuitive entry points

Technologies that rely on AI promise to streamline our lives, but the current AI landscape is overwhelming. From choosing the right tool for a task to learning how to properly prompt it, the barrier to entry can be daunting for casual consumers. AI is ripe for an evolution into truly intuitive modes of interaction that make it easy to use and accessible for everyone.

Near vision: An AI platform that bridges multiple AI providers and tools with an added layer of automation that picks the optimal toolset and flow for a user.

Products like Perplexity AI show early visions of this style of simplified entrypoint, by offering several large language models (LLM) as options in their search tools. Their focus on mapping sources of data allows users to further explore information, pointing to a future where the AI can take further steps within that data for the user.

Far vision: A product that serves as the conductor of an orchestra of specialized AI agents that work together to accomplish complex tasks on behalf of the user—with minimal prompting and no need for detailed instructions. It would have holistic platform integration through a dedicated app, Siri, Hey Google, text, phone, or email, and be able to do things like schedule vaccine appointments for the whole family. 

‍Inspiration: Forethought, AI-first customer support service; Simplified, a specialized AI suite of marketing and collaboration tools; and Arc Max, an AI-powered web browser that seamlessly integrates LLMs and AI tools with the website browsing experience.

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Social goals

Across our work, we are seeing that people are more connected to technology, but less connected to ourselves and to others. AI technologies are a unique addition that can help people engage with technology in healthier ways. Instead of adding to the digital noise, new AI tools should help people engage with technology in ways that align with their values and lead us to healthy human connections.

Near vision: Opt-in AI assistants that use the data already on our phones to offer nudges and assistance on actions that support their social goals. They can do things like check users’ step count and the weather, to nudge them to get outside with friends on a sunny day. 

Far vision: An AI-powered journal that acts as a digital mirror. It gently nudges users toward their goals and helps them reflect on their day. They decide what data to share with it and which areas of their lives they want it to help with. It can provide support by, say, telling users it’s proud of them for chatting with their mom today when that was a hard thing to do six months ago, and offering to send her flowers as a follow-up.

Inspiration: Character.ai, which is attracting a younger demographic with its offer of human-sounding virtual characters that offer social enrichment and companionship; Journal, Apple’s new iPhone app, which helps users reflect and practice gratitude; Hume AI’s Empathic Voice Interface (EVI), which interprets emotional expressions and generates empathic responses; and ETHIQLY, which is a startup IDEO helped create that aids teachers as they scale (and deepen) connections with their students with the help of generative AI.

Trust and safety

We are living in a data-driven world, where fear and skepticism of AI and fair data use prevails. For users to truly embrace AI, it needs to move toward building trust in the safety, accuracy, and intentions of these applications. Only then can all people use them with confidence.

Near vision: Governance projects that scale safety and compliance solutions for business and consumers. When users interact with a new AI tool, they can see the safety rating and a detailed report, as well as flags about AI-generated content. 

Far vision: AI models are subject to a robust AI safety pipeline before being used by people. Once approved, consumers can feel confident that their data and accounts are secure and information provided is true.  

‍Inspiration: Credo AI, which provides an intelligence layer that tracks, assesses, reports, and manages AI systems to ensure they are effective, compliant, and safe; IBM’s investment into R&D on human-centered AI (HCAI) solutions that amplify and augment human capabilities; and Anthropic, which provides visibility into its models and oversight into AI governance.

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Multimodal interactions

We are already seeing significant advancements toward multimodal AI, with OpenAI’s GPT-4o and Gemini, but most AI technologies still rely on voice and text AI interactions, which limit the richness and convenience of inputs. We believe the ideal future AI technologies will offer a variety of less disruptive ways to interact with and seamlessly integrate into humans’ daily lives, through visual, tactile, and even emotional inputs that create an intuitive synergy between humans and AI.

Near vision: For work, build on existing AI Assistant services of call summary and call interpretation by providing live call outputs that include a mix of audio, visual, and text summaries. 

Far vision: Wearable and ambient tech powered by AI assistants that are made aware of the user and their surroundings through sensory and multimodal input, allowing for short and seamless prompts that enrich their life on-the-go. Imagine being at a networking event and getting a reminder of a name or face you might have forgotten. 

‍Inspiration: The AX Visio AI-powered binoculars, which blend analog viewing with AI for bird and wildlife identification; Fireflies, which joins your meetings to automatically take notes, capture, and transcribe voice conversations across various platforms; rabbit r1 and the Humane Ai pin, which aim for a more intuitive and app-free online experience​; and MIT-developed technology that translates subvocalization signals to words.

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Nurturing and wellbeing

Content generation and execution of simple tasks are just the beginning of what AI can help us with. Future AI solutions will need to be able to keep track of the never-ending list of to-dos involved in managing our current busy lifestyles—so we can have time to care for ourselves and each other.

Near vision: A sleep device company creates wake up and sleep routines customized to personal calendars, health needs, and family routines. Picture a smart speaker and light that calibrates to your bodily needs, supporting your sleep and wake up routines, to help you get a great night’s rest before and after any day.

Far vision: An AI assistant integrated in your household that supports smart devices and communication channels for the entire family. It can order groceries and craft recipes based on everyone’s preferences, schedule maintenance, book catering for birthdays—anything a busy household needs. When you need some off-AI time, all you have to do is unplug it.

‍Inspiration: Aura, a specialized machine-learning platform that can be paired with ordinary microphones and understand more than human voices—like dogs barking, babies crying, and doorbells; the “mui Board Gen 2,” a Kickstarter project for a smart home hub; and Assistant with Bard, which combines Assistant’s capabilities with generative AI to help you stay on top of what’s most important, right from your phone.

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These provocations are driven by our research and signals we’re seeing in the world. For us, the next step to creating human-centered AI products is testing the value of lo-fi prototypes with real users, to find out which products or features are worth our development resources and which map to true needs. After all, we’ve seen companies in the space rush to build a product and get it out the door, before they even test it with potential users. You can make something that seems super futuristic only to find out that no one wants it, or that it can’t really do what you promised. Forty years in, we’re big believers in the power of human-centered design to help us craft audacious futures with technology that people actually want.

Intuitive. Social. Trusted. Nurturing. Multimodal.

I was there as part of the IDEO Play Lab’s ongoing work to leverage design to create digital spaces that help people thrive. We believe that thoughtful digital design is critical, especially as advocates argue there is a correlation between unregulated social media platforms and an ongoing mental health crisis. (In 2021, the CDC found that 42 percent of high school student respondents “experienced persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness,” a rise from 28 percent in 2011.)

‍At the event, I was really struck by what Khoa-Nathan Ngo, a psychology major at UCLA and a member of #GoodforMEdia, a youth-led group at the Stanford Center for Youth Mental Health & Wellbeing, had to contribute to the conversation. “You really can’t talk about youth, mental health, and well-being in this day and age without also talking about our relationship to social media,” he says. Ngo and his peers advocate for informed social media use and regulation; They’ve created tool kits for parents, led workshops at schools, and testified to support the Age-Appropriate Design Code Act in California. And they also regularly advise private companies and industry leaders, bringing student voice into the design process. After the event, Khoa-Nathan and I reconnected to talk about the importance of co-designing with youth to create a healthier future that includes digital tools and social media.

Michelle Lee: Nathan, you’re incredibly passionate about your work around social media and mental health. What drew you to this space?
Khoa-Nathan Ngo: During the Covid-19 pandemic, I realized that online, pushback against misinformation mostly happens within English-speaking spaces. In my Vietnamese community, and in Spanish- and Chinese-speaking communities, misinformation around where Covid-19 came from and the safety of the vaccine was rampant. That obviously has huge implications for health outcomes. I realized that what I was seeing on social media affected the health of my community and the nation. I couldn’t ignore that.

ML: We met at an event on digital thriving at the Stanford Internet Observatory, where you were part of the youth panel. Why is it important for companies in the private sector and advocacy groups to involve the youth voice in co-design?
KNN: The best argument for the importance of youth participation in co-design is when you look at what happened when they weren’t part of the process. Youth weren't considered in the social media design process at all, and that led to the situation we’re in now. Youth were only considered consumers, a demographic to engage and profit from. Technology could have been created to promote our well-being and interconnectedness, but what we value wasn’t centered in the design process, which has created a major crisis in terms of our mental health.

ML: You mentioned that the legislative work is very rewarding for you. Tell us more about that.
KNN: In our conversations around social media and mental health, there’s a lot of condemning individuals: Kids are addicted to their phones and they don’t know how to hold a conversation, or parents should control privacy settings. But at the legislative level, we’re able to have bigger conversations: How are these tech companies collecting data? How do they design these products to be addictive? How do they radicalize kids by exposing them to echo chambers? How should children’s data be stored? You can really only have those conversations at the policy level.

ML: What are your thoughts about policymakers? What advice do you have for people in positions of governmental power?
Khoa-Nathan Ngo: My advice is to bring in experts who so badly want to be a part of this conversation. The Age-Appropriate Design Code Act in California did that — part of the policy involved bringing together people from fields including computer science, mental health, and children’s rights to figure out a shared vision. This is a complex problem, and it deserves comprehensive solutions that involve going after companies and their practices directly, not just empowering parents and protecting kids. 

ML: I’ve heard you talk about the difference between privileges and rights in the digital space. Can you explain that distinction?
KNN: Of course. Because we all have these apps on our phones, social media platforms can feel like a public and shared space. But at the end of the day, these are private companies, and they can choose what they want to show us. If they privilege popularity-driven content over factual content, that’s their right. The opposite is also true: If their algorithm doesn’t privilege your post, you were not denied your First Amendment right. If you want to post something on your personal account, you have that right, but you don’t have the right to my attention. You have the right to speak, but it’s a privilege to be listened to.

ML: One word that came up repeatedly at the Stanford event was “nuance.” While many focus on the harms of digital media, there are also good things that come out of social media and digital presences, and I’d love for you to touch on that. If I were to say, we’re going to take away all social media, what would your response be?
‍KNN: If you remove social media because of the harm it has caused, then you’re indicting the people who use social media rather than the people who created these platforms to be addictive. No one said that the most popular content needs to be Photoshopped images or Breitbart. That comes from the platforms’ design, and shutting down social media puts the blame on individuals when it should be on companies. Don’t compromise our ability to politically mobilize, or for marginalized youth to find community. There are so many young people who find joy and love on social media—I don’t think that removing it is better than reforming it.

ML: Given how deep you are in this space, what are your thoughts on flipping social media from a tool that can cause harm to one that can lead to self-acceptance and more authenticity? What are some ways that we could approach that?
KNN: I really like this question, because I like to talk about concrete solutions. I think the biggest way we can make social media a place for self-acceptance rather than self-harm is to give autonomy to the users. Let people determine if they want their feed to only consist of people they actually follow, or only show their close friends. Let people determine what healthy social media looks like for them, and give them the ability to design social media for themselves. We know better than anyone else what’s good for us. We should have the ability and tools to act on that knowledge. 

ML: But there’s a certain level of education that goes along with that, to help people be more informed as they make these decisions for themselves, right?
KNN: Definitely. We need to regulate social media, but we also need to teach media literacy. It starts with making sure that mental health education is available in all schools, where children learn about how to protect their emotional health, including on social media. There are ways that we can make social media a better place, but at the end of the day, we also have to communicate to kids that having social media is a massive responsibility.

ML: What might tools to help youth understand that responsibility look like?
KNN: I think it’d be great if there was an online resource that helped parents and kids determine what level of vulnerability they have to online harm. Do I feel connected to my community? Do I feel understood by my peers? Have I developed interests and hobbies of my own? Maybe that can give a measurement that helps kids understand whether they should be online, based on how vulnerable they are to online addiction and harm. 

There also need to be conversations that happen at school. When students learn to navigate research online, we need to teach more than, “Don’t use Wikipedia, kids.” I’m really a fan of assigning an essay and asking students to cite five sources—one of those sources has to be from Twitter, Instagram, or TikTok, and you have to verify it as a credible source. What are the credentials of this TikToker? Are they an MD, are they trying to sell you something? Did they cite anyone in their video? We need to train media analysis and literacy to include social media platforms. 

ML: If you were a parent, what would you do to set rules or guidelines for your kids?
KNN: If I were a parent in this day and age, I would be a bit more humble about how social media is affecting kids’ brains, because it’s rewiring adult brains as well. Our parents say don’t believe everything you read online, but then they believe Facebook conspiracies. Social media addiction is very different from other types of addiction. Gen X and Boomers have seen alcoholism, drug abuse, and the opioid epidemic. My parents can talk to me about that and draw on a rich body of experience. But all of us are experiencing social media at the same time. They don’t have a wealth of experience to draw from. How do you warn kids about sexual predators, if you don't know that is happening online? Or warn them about becoming radicalized? My job is not to inform my child, but to be informed with my child. We’re in this messy digital world together. Can we work together? Can we share tips and tricks about how to have a healthier relationship with social media? 

It definitely has to be a much more egalitarian partnership than it used to be before. It has to be an equal partnership. We’re all going through it together at the same time.

ML: What advice would you give to designers in this space?
‍KNN: If you’re designing a product that will be used by or affect youth, then you should engage youth. That requires a special skill set, because for a young person, it can be really intimidating when an adult asks for your thoughts on an issue. You need to engage them, ask the proper questions, and make them feel comfortable being vulnerable. That’s a different skill set than being a good UX designer or engineer, so if that ability isn’t on your team, think about bringing in people who have experience with youth participation.

Are you asking the right questions about digital thriving? How are you working to understand Gen Z? Tell us how we can help.

A few weeks ago, I attended an event at Stanford University held in collaboration with the Biden-Harris Administration’s Kids Online Health and Safety Task Force.

Only 13 percent of women in Pakistan have a bank account, so they designed their product to be easier to use than traditional banks. Still, many women struggled to use the service, especially low-income women and first-time internet users.

What was happening? Why was it so hard to connect with customers?

The answer was always in front of them: male defaults.

The invisible made visible

Even though Oraan was built by women, for women, the startup struggled with the pervasive problem of male-centered norms. 

Male defaults reflect biases deeply ingrained in our society. They allow institutions to build products to fit the way men inhabit the world: the kinds of jobs they have; how they use phones; their available free time; and even their ability to move around in public. At best, this hinders women's access to financial systems, forcing them to jump over extra hurdles. Often, it means low-income women must rely on men as proxies, having to ask a husband to save money in his bank account, and then needing his permission to access that money. At worst, it excludes women from the financial system, robbing them of opportunities entirely.

Male defaults aren't just bad for women, they're bad for business. Globally, women are 31 percent more likely to have an inactive financial account than men, and banks and fintechs wonder why. Are women just not interested in saving money? Are they not educated enough to understand new products? Are they stuck in the past? Attempts to adapt existing bank products to appeal to women have often fizzled, and many new women-centered products have tried and failed to reach product-market fit. 

Why is this problem so hard to solve? It’s difficult to fix what you don’t see—and male defaults are so prevalent that they’re nearly invisible unless you know how to look for them. Anyone who has set up a bank account or used digital financial services has probably encountered them:

• Account sign-up processes that require customers to fill in their occupation in the first few questions (something mothers, caregivers, and the unemployed may not have, and can lead to dishonest answers)
• Marital status (which can can disadvantage or raise stigma for women who are single, separated, divorced, or widowed)
• Property ownership (which can disadvantage low-income women who rent, live with family, and women who do not have deeds or documents in their own names) 
• Mobile number, especially for account verification (which can immediately cut off women who don't own a mobile phone or share one with family members) 
• Annual income (which can make it very difficult for informal workers with multiple income sources to open a financial account or qualify for a loan)

With gender-intentional design, IDEO is pushing back against these practices, and challenging the reign of male defaults. Already, we’re starting to see how even small shifts can create outsized impact for women. 

An addressable opportunity

Today, more than half of the world’s 1.4 billion unbanked adults are women. At IDEO Last Mile Money, we believe the solution to filling this enormous gap in financial agency and social equity lies in better design, with products and systems made for and with women, not just adapted after the fact. 

Over the last five years, we’ve brought together gender experts, banks, institutions, and fintechs to co-design what women-centric financial products should look like.

Together, we’ve uncovered male-default design patterns and developed design principles to disrupt them. We’ve updated our Financial Confidence Playbook with a new section dedicated to women and finance, with examples of products, features, and best practices for designing for underserved women. It’s all in service of helping teams question and ditch male defaults.

Here are three key shifts that can help companies build products designed for women:

1. From invasive to inclusive

If you sign up for any financial service, you’ll often see the same standard questions. While they are meant to build a user profile and increase security features, diving straight into these questions about occupation, income level, or home ownership can quickly make underserved women feel unwelcome, and push them to abandon the process altogether. 

Luckily, small design changes can transform the experience. In Pakistan, we explored how to make a rigorous financial account sign-up process more inclusive. We asked Oraan: What is the information you actually need? How might we reframe data requests in ways that feel empowering for underserved women? This helped Oraan rewrite those standard questions, from “What’s your occupation?” to “How do you spend your days?” Simple, but effective: 50 percent more women signed up for Oraan’s service. And the changes also reduced the load on Oraan’s back-end systems. Because Oraan articulated its requests more clearly, women submitted higher-quality documents, which meant Oraan’s team spent less time on follow-up calls. Win-win.

2. Let’s get ‘phygital’

For women at the last mile, the journey to adopt digital finance begins long before they pick up a phone. Yet, many new products default to engaging customers via digital-only channels. So, we propose going “phygital,” connecting physical and digital experiences to meet women where they are. 

Why? Many underserved women live in a world that’s mostly person-to-person and not very digital. They’re more likely to share a smartphone, and  they juggle so many responsibilities as mothers, caregivers, and informal workers, they have limited time and bandwidth to try and learn new digital services. 

These factors affected product use at Wagely, a startup that digitizes wages for women factory workers in Asia. Many women in Bangladesh had signed up for the service, but their accounts became dormant quickly. In a country where just 21 percent of women own smartphones, Wagely needed a phygital approach. 

Together we expanded its service blueprint to include a few key physical touchpoints. Our goal was to increase trust in Wagely’s service by showing up at familiar spots like community centers, building tangibility with physical collateral like membership cards, and creating a reward system that’s tailored to women’s everyday purchases like groceries and health items. 

Designing for phygital might seem less cost-effective than going digital only, but it opens doors for female customers, can supercharge usage, and improves long-term retention. 

3. No pink products

We believe that to truly include women in finance, their needs have to be prioritized from initial research all the way through to the future roadmap.

In partnership with Mansi Gupta at UnConform, a women-centric design consultancy, we created a Gender Evaluation Framework to help companies build a more gender intentional strategy that guides teams from discovery all the way to outcome measurement. With four pillars—Intent, Capability, Commitment, and Impact—teams can use our  prompts to reflect on their own gender practices throughout the product cycle. 

Last year, we also used the framework to choose which of the more than 300 startups that applied to Last Mile Money's 2023 gender and finance accelerator to accept. Our portfolio startups took the Framework a step further to generate insights and ideas to improve everything from product features to strategy for the future, as well as how to measure their impact on women's lives.  

We’re sharing these design principles in hopes that financial institutions around the world will reconsider how they are designing their products, and include women’s needs in the process from the start—whether they’re unbanked women at the Last Mile in emerging markets, or women who have been kept out of financial systems in the U.S. Not only is it the right thing to do, it’s a way to reach the next billion women coming online. 

Already, Oraan is seeing the benefits of the shift it has made to center the needs of women in Pakistan. With 50 percent more women accessing digital financial services through their platform, IDEO and Oraan are demonstrating that gender-intentional design benefits both financial providers and underserved women themselves.

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Dive deeper into the Women x Finance section of the Financial Confidence Playbook.

In 2023 the team at Oraan, a women-led fintech startup in Pakistan, was facing lower signup rates than they expected.

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.