The IDEO team quickly discovered that the challenge of designing a Digital@FEMSA super app for tens of millions of customers was matched only by the operational complexity of bringing together different teams that had already created various apps with separate value propositions. Not to mention the 22,000 stores specifically tailored to local communities.

To kick off the project, the IDEO team built on FEMSA’s already deep understanding of its customers by meeting them in their homes and communities. The team discovered that users didn't care about long-term rewards; instead, they wanted everyday help to thrive long-term. Connecting omnichannel rewards to regular spending would allow them to save time and money—something they said was particularly important. Along with market research, insights like these directly informed the app's design, ensuring that it was compatible with users' everyday habits and preferences.

Meanwhile, the project team also worked to ensure the app fit the priorities of the various teams inside Digital@FEMSA, designing a comprehensive process for testing joint value propositions. Together, the team created a new design system, iconography, and set of unifying principles. IDEO also worked closely with the Digital@FEMSA teams to ensure that the app's design was in line with their strategic goals and technical capabilities, and built the app's initial information architecture. They incorporated secure transactions, effortless coupon redemption, personalized offers, and a cohesive loyalty program.

From there, the IDEO and Digital@FEMSA teams quickly transitioned into the design and development phase, producing prototypes of the new app, dubbed Spin Premia. With the help of user testing, they were able to continuously iterate to improve the app's features and functionalities, creating a user experience that was both seamless and intuitive. In just 10 months, they went from a small digital team with an ambitious idea, to a 150+ people product organization and an MVP launched in one region. And thanks to a tight partnership, the teams were able to seamlessly integrate Spin Premia into Digital@FEMSA's existing systems, resulting in a scalable implementation nationwide just a few months later.

The introduction of Spin Premia was a milestone in FEMSA's digital transformation path. Following a true ship and iterate model, just a few months into the project, the company released a smaller, focused version of the app in just one city in Mexico to quickly learn from customer experience before expanding to new regions. Since then, the Spin Premia app has quickly gained popularity, offering a safe and user-friendly platform that millions of Mexican consumers have embraced. It has also allowed FEMSA to broaden its digital portfolio and extend its customer base throughout Mexico, elevating customer satisfaction and fueling business expansion.

13 million Mexicans visit FEMSA’s OXXO convenience stores every day. But the company had ambitions to leverage digital experiences to increase customer engagement.

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To get there, Digital@FEMSA needed to deliver exceptional digital products with the agility to serve an entire population.

4.7 stars

Spin Premia’s app store rating

22.8 million

active Spin Premia program users

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Midscale hotel brands are the fastest-growing hotel segment in the US, attractive to both travelers and hotel owners. But often, their messaging feels repetitive, and travelers have a tough time differentiating between them. With a warm, thoughtfully designed midscale brand, IHG had an enormous opportunity to distinguish itself in a crowded market. 

IHG’s goal was to deliver a guest experience that felt genuinely unique and resonant—and quickly. With costs on the rise, many owners were motivated to turn toward conversion brands, which allow them to refurbish hotels under a new brand rather than invest in construction, a way to grow their portfolio in a tight financing market. Meanwhile, IHG’s competitors were set to introduce new conversion brands of their own. The company was looking for a partner that could work swiftly and iteratively to deliver a distinct brand.

For the IDEO team, the answer lay in communicating the brand’s value, starting with a custom logo rendered by hand. Inspired by vintage sign painting and modernist typography, the team sketched different versions of the letterforms, reviewing them with IHG until they had a set that brought to life the generosity and sense of invitation associated with the hotel’s spaces. They also worked to ensure the wordmark was visually balanced and would translate well across a variety range of scales. From there, they built an expansive brand world, including bespoke navigation icons, a full interior and exterior signage system, and a video to support the Garner launch.

The result is a hotel brand that stands apart in its category for both travelers and owners: thoughtful and well-designed yet affordable. As competition in the midscale segment continues to increase, Garner has been central to IHG’s growth strategy. Launched in the fall of 2023, Garner opened 100 hotels worldwide in just 16 months, making it the fastest-ever IHG brand to scale globally. The brand’s increasing popularity among owners and developers is driven by the growing demand for conversion properties, which accounted for 52% of IHG’s room openings in 2025. Garner plans to continue its rapid expansion with nearly 80 additional hotels in 12 key markets, including the US, Mexico, Italy, and Japan.

Conversions account for 12% of the global hotel pipeline, enabling hotels to switch brands and refurbish, boosting revenue without expensive construction.
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The US midscale hotel segment, valued at $14B, is expected to reach $18B by 2030.

100 new Garner Hotels

in less than 3 years—the fastest-scaling brand in IHG's history

500 Garner Hotels

planned in the next 10 years; 1,000 over the next 20

Alzheimer’s and dementia are notoriously difficult to treat—and scientists estimate that some 50 percent of people who have dementia are undiagnosed. Recognition of symptoms and early intervention are key. Together and IDEO set out to conduct user research to inspire new products that would help patients with cognitive decline take charge of their brain health.

The first priority was to expand the reach of the Moving Together program, which combines group movement exercises with mindfulness techniques, led by a trained group instructor. The IDEO team conducted remote and in-person interviews in Florida, where one in five residents is age 65 and older, and rates of Alzheimer’s and dementia are among the highest in the country. One of the key insights the team discovered was that many older adults didn’t understand how behaviors like smoking, exercise, and diet can be risk factors for cognitive decline. Their input inspired a new design principle for the program: “No naked feedback.” Any time participants received health coaching advice about modifying their lifestyle, they would also be given resources on why and how to do it, so they would have a pathway to boosting their brain health. 

The IDEO team folded insights like this one into the design for four new product offerings, including personalized brain health education, new online community engagement tools, partnership programs, and health coaching services, as well as a new user interface to illustrate them. Along with Together they also developed an implementation roadmap of next steps to bring the new digital product offerings to market, such as hiring a brain health coach and creating a new course curriculum. Now, Together has enrolled 165 people in the Boost Your Brain Health Clinical Trial, which is looking at outcomes such as reduced risk of Alzheimer's and maintenance of cognitive function for the Brain Health Together program. With trial completion in Q3 2024 and product launch in early 2025, growing numbers of people with MCI will have access to this exciting program. Together incorporated almost all of the elements from the IDEO roadmap into the final curriculum, and the team often refers back to insights the team gathered as guiding design principles.

Fighting barriers to diagnosis

With its online program growing, Together wanted to take on an even bigger problem: dementia underdiagnosis. Co-founder Dr. Deborah Barnes had recently developed an algorithm that uses patients’ health records to calculate their risk of undiagnosed dementia, called the electronic health record Risk of Alzheimer's and Dementia Assessment Rule (eRADAR). Together was looking to find creative ways to equip and empower providers to use risk scores like eRADAR in primary care settings.

One piece of the puzzle? Many primary care doctors are unaware that better management of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia can have a positive impact on other chronic health issues—like diabetes, hypertension, and depression. So by encouraging providers to prioritize dementia care, they can help support the overall health of older adults with cognitive decline. The IDEO team recommended a curriculum for continuing education courses for doctors that make that link clear—another step toward increasing dementia diagnosis and improving overall health.

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Better help, sooner

To understand the patient experience, Together and IDEO decided to work directly with patients and caregivers to uncover what was stopping them from asking for dementia screening. The IDEO team quickly learned many patients were afraid of facing a diagnosis that signified a loss of agency and control, especially when they didn’t believe there were good treatment options. Often, they were unaware that there were things they could do to improve their brain health. They needed to know what steps to take after a diagnosis, and who could provide actionable advice. In response, the IDEO team designed a digital activity toolkit and physical booklet to guide patient families through the early stages of a dementia diagnosis, including recognizing the signs and symptoms, having better conversations with their doctor, and getting connected to support groups and programs like Moving Together.

Solving the problem of dementia underdiagnosis involves complex systems-level thinking and designing for the entire health ecosystem of patients, providers, and insurance payers, and solutions for Alzheimer’s and dementia care are still in their infancy. But already, this work is empowering patients and doctors to prioritize brain health and get screened sooner, and Together, which has since been acquired by Linus Health, is still working to move dementia care forward.

Approximately 12-18% of people aged 60 or older live with mild cognitive impairment, while memory loss, Alzheimer's and dementia affect more than 50 million people around the world.

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An estimated 50% of people living with dementia are undiagnosed.

165 enrolled

in the Boost Your Brain Health Clinical Trial

Many companies view culture-building initiatives as nice-to-haves. At Moderna, Mindsets are a business imperative, crucial to its plans to develop breakthrough products quickly.

For companies working on solutions as vital as a COVID-19 vaccine, delays and mistakes don’t just mean missing a product launch date—they’re life-or-death, and on a large scale. Moderna had to ensure that its employees knew how to make the right decisions, evaluate risk, and move quickly—even if they came from organizations with more bureaucracy and less risk tolerance. In 2021, IDEO sat down with longtime Moderna veterans to hear stories about moments that exemplify the company's culture, like the day a critical piece of equipment arrived but was too big to fit through the door. Taking it apart would have added days to their timeline. So employees took sledgehammers to a wall instead. Stories like this one fed into the crafting of the list of Mindsets, such as “Act with urgency: Action today compounds the lives saved tomorrow” and “We behave like owners: The solutions we’re building go beyond any job description.”

To gather feedback, the team shared the draft Mindsets with a diverse set of employees—new hires, veterans, folks already closely aligned with the culture, folks for whom it wasn’t the most natural fit, and a plethora of employee resource groups. CEO Stéphane Bancel and the leadership team took crafting and iterating on the Mindsets very seriously, wordsmithing and tweaking them with the team until they were ready to share them officially. Now, new hires learn about the company’s Mindsets in Moderna ONE, an onboarding process that IDEO helped revamp, while existing employees attend a workshop to ensure everyone at the company knows not only what to do but also how to do it effectively. In a matter of weeks, IDEO helped Moderna codify its culture for employees and set the company up for continued success. Moderna continues to embed these Mindsets across the entire employee lifecycle to systematically scale its culture.

For employees new and old, the clarity of the Mindsets has made it easier to understand expectations and to understand the company itself. Long-term veterans responded with comments like, "These really help explain why we're working this way,” while one newbie said, "It feels like a homecoming to hear the culture that we’re trying to bring through.” But more than just solving a cultural issue, the new Mindsets have fulfilled a business imperative: Holding on to the secret sauce that made Moderna successful to begin with, setting the stage for its next five years of breakthroughs.

When the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the COVID-19 health crisis a pandemic in March of 2020, Moderna had fewer than 1,000 employees. Four years later, it’s more than five times the size.

Ranked #1

BioSpace Best Place to Work, large company in 2024

Ranked #6

Boston Consulting Group’s 50 Most Innovative Report in 2023

Ranked #4

Deloitte’s Technology Fast 500 List in 2023

As we move through the world in 2025, we have a long list of things we’d love to rethink, if only we had the chance. Here’s what’s risen to the top of our list this year.

PRODUCTS:

1. LED headlights make driving at night painful—and dangerous. Am I getting older and cranky? Yes! But that doesn’t change the fact that headlight brightness has doubled in the past 10 years, and the last time I checked, roads have not gotten darker. There are ways to keep ourselves safe on the road without blinding our fellow travelers.
—Will Notini, Chicago

2. Food storage lids and containers always seem to get separated, leaving mismatched pieces that feel impossible to pair. Containers rarely stack efficiently, taking up more space than they should, and any attempt at maintaining an organized and sustainable system seems destined to fail. How might we redesign everyday kitchen organization to turn common pain points into seamless experiences?
—Sindhura Sonnathi, San Francisco

3. Same. In addition to them getting separated and inefficient stacking, food containers never come out of the dishwasher completely dry. I’m constantly having to dry them with a towel and needing to get in those nooks and crannies to get all of the water out. The glass, ceramic, and metal dishes don’t do this. It’s just a nuisance. Let’s fix it!
—Shavon Gervasi, Cambridge

4. Assuming you’ve figured out what app the show you want to watch is in, you now get the joy of having to scroll through TV interfaces with long, flat horizontal “trays” down long flat horizontal pages. Sometimes there’s a bit of variation (Rectangles! Squares! Larger rectangles and squares!) but it’s easy to get lost, and hard to flip back and forth between things you’re interested in. I don’t miss my cable subscription, but I really do miss some of the things cable figured out how to do well.
—Dan Perkel, San Francisco

5. There must be a better solution than our current umbrellas. They're so inefficient and cumbersome to carry around. I always put off using one until I absolutely can't avoid it, and by that point, it often ends up breaking due to the wind anyway.
—Rita Nicolau, London

6. Many (most?) new cars have all of their radio functionality accessible only via touchscreen, which is 1) dangerous and 2) extremely inconvenient for your passenger DJ. Well-intentioned safety measures block smartphone syncing while the car is in motion (even when a passenger is doing the syncing instead of the driver), and many touchscreens require the user to navigate away from a map app in order to operate the music app or radio. Forcing all functionality to route through a screen is clunky and makes for a poor roadtrip experience.
—Meridith Halsey, Chicago

7. Compostable straws are better for the Earth than plastic straws! But, they get all mushy and disintegrate half-way through your drink. We can make something better.
—Nina Lampert, London

8. Why do white plastic fences exist? They’re a larger version of the white plastic bag. They are not good for the environment, they do not weather well, and you really can’t repair them like you can a wooden fence.
—Christina Abele, Cambridge

9. This might be more of a revival than a redesign, but I’d love to build a version of The Whole Earth Catalog (WEC) updated for 2025. First published in 1968, the original WEC was a compendium of product listings, how-to guides, and educational tools for those in the back-to-the-land movement, shaped by thinkers like Buckminster Fuller. We need a new version of that radical spirit. Whatever form it takes, a new WEC could offer practical resources, forward-thinking education, and hands-on toolkits with an eye toward sustainable living and ecological literacy.
—Beth Holzer, San Francisco

10. For so many people, financial decisions like planning, budgeting, etc., are group decisions—made with roommates, loved ones, spouses (former spouses!), parents, kids, and others. And yet due to a combination of regulations, conventions, and perhaps a bit of laziness, almost every financial product, service, or brand is oriented around a one-to-one relationship that people then have to hack or modify to truly use in a collaborative, group-first way. Does it really have to be this way?
—Dan Perkel, San Francisco

11. Streaming services don’t financially benefit most artists. How can we create more equitable, scalable systems for artists to make living wages?
—Ceci Gomez, San Francisco

12. When I was little we went to the store to buy a dishwasher and the display models all had glass fronts. I came BURSTING in the door to tell my mom that we were getting a dishwasher with a window. The disappointment I felt when it came with a metal front is an understatement. Why don’t they have clear glass doors?
—Molly Rolig, San Francisco

13. Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA) are tax-advantaged accounts that allow employees to set aside pre-tax money to pay for eligible medical expenses. And  my bi-yearly dental cleaning is solidly within the eligibility guidelines. However, after every dental cleaning, my FSA provider tracks me down asking for an itemized receipt to “prove” that the visit was covered—even though there’s nothing at the dentist’s office that I can purchase that is outside of that coverage. This doesn’t happen with any other eligible medical expense I incur; how is it still the case that paying for dental care gets constantly flagged as potential fraud? It’s a friction point that makes me not want to deal with FSAs at all. If FSAs are meant to promote preventative care, they should be designed to promote as seamless an experience as possible for the employee.
—Meridith Halsey, Chicago

14. Shower curtains are hard to clean, the metal rusts, the little hooks fall off, they make noise,  they are annoying to take down and put back up, and they aren’t easy to change out to suit your mood or time of day. Staying clean while keeping the rest of the bathroom dry could use some innovation.
—Dan Perkel, San Francisco

SYSTEMS:

15. Currently, the shareholder model of corporate governance requires the maximization of shareholder wealth, which has contributed to wage disparity, corporate greed, lowered local tax payments, lack of corporate social accountability, and inappropriate corporate influence on government legislation and policy. This could be redesigned so that, one,  shareholder wealth is only a part of the corporate mandate; two, corporate “freedom of speech” is curtailed; three, corporations have less influence over government; and four, corporations contribute more to their local communities and economies.
—Jeremy Sallin, San Francisco

16. In Capitalism, we have a system that is rewarding greed and nonstop growth, while that growth is now killing our planet. Something’s gotta give, y’all.
—Stuart Getty, San Francisco

17. Why are pedestrians, who are the most vulnerable participants in traffic systems, often deprioritized by cities and our infrastructure? Especially here in the U.S. At times when traffic is light (at night, for example), pedestrian crossing signals are red by default, while the signal for main thoroughfare for cars is green. What if all pedestrian crossing had a default state of “cross” instead? Also why do pedestrians need to request the right to pass by pressing a button? I’d want our cities to shift from car-first systems, to people-first and would love traffic lights to lead the way.
—Juho Parviainen, San Francisco

18. Why do I need to install a new medical app on my phone, every time I go see a doctor? Why must every practice have their own portal, their own system, their own login info, and their own interface? Even my doctor sometimes struggles to pull all of the inputs into a single place where they can see everything and give an accurate assessment and advice. How might we streamline the use of patient data into a format that’s truly efficient for physicians and patients alike?
—Shannon Vossler, Chicago

19. As cities face more extreme and frequent heat waves, our built environment is failing to protect residents—especially vulnerable populations like the elderly, outdoor workers, and low-income communities who often lack access to cooling. Temporary cooling centers and emergency response plans are reactive band-aids that don't address systemic issues in heat resilience. Traditional infrastructure (dark pavement, lack of shade, heat-trapping buildings) actively makes the problem worse. The complex interplay between urban design, social equity, and climate science demands innovative thinking beyond just adding more AC units.
—Nazlican Goksu, San Francisco

EXPERIENCES:

20. Meetings are the backbone of how teams align, make decisions, and move work forward—but too often, they’re baaaaad. Unstructured, dominated by a few voices, or overly reliant on agendas that prioritize activities over outcomes. This leads to wasted time, drained energy, and frustrated participants. By applying a designer’s mindset—clarifying objectives, prototyping small changes, and making discussions tangible—meetings can become opportunities for collaboration, alignment, and momentum instead of sources of friction.
—Matt Cooper-Wright, London

21. The behavior we let people get away with under the guise of “the customer is always right” never ceases to shock me. We subject service workers, in-store employees, and more to the worst side of human behavior all because we decided—what?—that paying money at a store lets you say whatever you want to the people who work there? I am a customer of various places, and I am rarely ever right (although you don’t see me screaming about it)! I’d love to see our executive class stick their neck out for their employees, who are their most valuable asset, and set stricter public standards for customers’ treatment of their staff.
—Andy Reischling, Cambridge

22. People used to associate travel with wonder and adventure. Now, people grit their teeth and steel themselves when making their way to and through an airport. Airports should not be malls full of stuff that no one really wants. Instead of having overpriced corner shops, what if we had libraries for books and items? Instead of a mall food court, what if we had places to recharge, refresh, and have a free healthy snack?    
—Dave Kim, San Francisco

23. Why is there so much beeping in hospitals? As a patient it is overwhelming. I am impressed that hospital employees can decipher all the beeps, emergency vs. non emergency.
—Christina Abele, Cambridge

24. Commercial flights have been around for about 110 years,  and we still have to be there two hours in advance for a flight that is in the air for the same amount of time. The boarding process where you’re forced to stand in an even smaller space for 40 minutes before they open the plane doors deserves a human-centered takeover.
—Justine Syen, London

25. While people come to the emergency department for a whole range of reasons, they tend to have two things in common: they are nervous (for themselves or a loved one) and they have no idea how long they’ll be there. Instead of uncomfortable chairs, a single TV blaring the news on high volume, and a sad nearly-empty vending machine, there are so many opportunities to design an environment that better accommodates the feelings of stress and uncertainty in the air. A little privacy would be nice, too!
—Jen Halls, Cambridge

26. Can we all admit we made a mistake and just get rid of self-checkout? Where I live, in Watertown, MA, there are several stores that have gotten rid of most of their staff in favor of self-checkout machines and, simultaneously, put crucial items (like toothpaste) behind a locked door. Because the store is so understaffed, you might be waiting—and I timed this—15 minutes for someone to come unlock the toothpaste for you. And the machines themselves! We are all human here. We sometimes make mistakes with machinery that we are unfamiliar with. This just slows everything down and we end up calling for help in the end, anyway.
—Andy Reischling, Cambridge

27. Why does renting a car at an airport still feel like traveling back in time to the early ‘90s? Surely we can do better now. I want a better rental experience and 100 percent electric fleet.
—Juho Parviainen, San Francisco

28. There’s nothing like a good road trip. It’s an opportunity to get to know the U.S.  and the people you’re traveling with in a new way. Improved ground transportation between cities is associated with greater employment opportunities for working professionals and economic growth for smaller towns. As autonomous and electric vehicle technologies improve, I’d love to design an intercity public transportation service run by electric, autonomous vehicles to promote travel between cities, towns, far-flung national parks, and more in a way that is fun and adventurous while also promoting stronger personal bonds and broader economic growth.
—Natasha Alani, Cambridge

29. With skyrocketing costs for labor and delivery as well as growing concerns around maternity mortality rates (particularly for people of color), it’s time to redesign the end-to-end experience for maternity care! I’d love to explore the rise of maternity care deserts especially in the shadow of recent changes in reproductive policy.
—Diana Tobey, Play Lab

30. There are so many reasons to redesign American elementary education, but ultimately kids need more movement and active learning. There are pockets of teachers that do this. But this doesn’t work for everyone and in my experience as a parent, I see and hear about kids who are not thriving in traditional classrooms. Certainly works for some, but not all, so let’s rethink it.
—Christina Abele, Cambridge

31. There’s so much anxiety, opaqueness, searching, follow-ups, making impossible decisions in the process of finding daycare for children. Why do parents get minimal notice (hours to days) on making day care acceptance decisions when providers can force families to commit thousands to secure spots and provide multiple months notice to leave? The equation doesn’t stack up fairly. How might we design transparent, fair, confidence-building methods to seek, select and find care for our children?
—Uvini Lokuge, San Francisco

32. Why does open enrollment have to be so confusing? I feel like I have to do advanced scenario analyses to compare healthcare plans and still honestly have no idea what my total health costs for the year will be. Can there be fewer options? Fewer acronyms? Some sort of feedback loop to tell you at the end of the year if you made the right enrollment decision?
—Jen Halls, Cambridge

33. I cannot praise our teachers and faculty enough for all they do—but the emails are hard to keep up with. The important information is often buried in the body of the emails, and because they’re often titled something like “week one” or “week two” they’re hard to search. Also—plot twist —some  information comes home on a print out and isn’t mirrored in emails, so don’t throw anything away! How can we help redesign school communication so that our beloved teachers can easily share a window into our children's lives that we can keep track of?
—Kristin Boer, Chicago

Need help redesigning a product, system, or experience of your own? Get in touch.

When you spend your life designing products, experiences, and systems, everything you interact with is an invitation to wonder, “what if…”

Many of our listeners wrote to us sharing their own questions about AI and how it can shape the future, and we wanted to answer them. Jenna Fizel and Savannah Kunovsky, Managing Directors of IDEO’s Emerging Technology Lab, sat down to provide answers.

How can we design for the futures we want to build?

Savannah Kunovsky: The most important thing is to take a step back outside of the hustle of how we are currently creating technology and think about what it is that you really are trying to accomplish. Then, it’s crucial to work alongside people who will be influenced or impacted by it, so that what you’re making is truly beneficial to those people.

Jenna Fizel: The current crop of AI tools are truly about being able to ask the right question in the right way, and you have to be very specific about your intention. I wonder if that new habit that we are all going to have to cultivate might change how we think about the future and how we define our present.

Do you think generative AI will enhance our collaboration, or replace it?

JF: A great question. There's a lot of inherent tension in collaboration, particularly in the way knowledge workers connect today, remotely and across time zones. We're already being pressured to work asynchronously, and that can be really challenging. Sometimes, understanding how to move forward without the input of my colleagues can feel scary or impossible. AI tools do provide the possibility of creative companionship. They offer a way to move forward not just more quickly, but more deeply, if they can take on the perspectives and skill sets of your colleagues. Now, of course, that can also go super wrong. The lack of reliability in a lot of these tools could be catastrophic. But I'm interested in finding ways for these tools to keep us connected even in logistically challenging circumstances.

SK: I hear a lot of people saying, “AI will never replace us,” or “AI is definitely going to replace this thing.” But there's actually just a lot of gray area, including partial automation or augmentation and just an evolution of the work that we are doing. All of that gray area is where I think the majority of our work is going to lie. It’s a much more nuanced conversation.

For the most part, the changes to how we work are not going to happen overnight just because a new tool comes out. Often, the change is actually a lot more gradual. In our practice, it's been incredibly important that we stay on top of new tools and understand how we might use them for our workflows and collaboration.

Can you speak about the relationship between AI usage and the perception of human expression as a key source of value creation?

SK: The ultimate question is, what will there be demand for? Will there be demand for quick-hit creative experiences – i.e. fast food creativity? Will there be demand for hand-crafted, human-made creativity? In my opinion, there always has been and always will be a need for both.

We might see that some lower-barrier forms of creativity become more accessible to more people, and advanced use of AI tools become more of a craft, pulling together multiple types of emerging technologies. So far, that’s the way I’ve seen a lot of artists use emerging technologies, by incorporating them as a new creative and provocative element to what they do.

JF: To me, creativity becomes how you can use and push the tools. The very obvious analogy is the adoption of the camera and photography, which set the groundwork for Impressionism and future versions of less or non-representative art.

But there’s also the creativity of the toolmaker. One of the things that really excites me about very large machine learning models is the design and the math behind how they work—a hugely creative endeavor.

So the idea that creativity is no longer valuable because AI can draw a picture or write a sonnet really sells short the concept of what creativity really is. Creativity is what enabled any of the tools that made those things to come into being to begin with. The idea that you would not value that kind of creativity, and therefore potentially miss out on new forms of technology, seems quite short-sighted. That would be like 25 years ago saying, “Our phones are great. We never need to invest in making new cell phones ever again.” And then none of us would have these small computers that we carry around in our pockets every day.

What can leaders or teams do now to steer their organization towards the AI tools and integration that make sense to them?

JF: One of the key steps is figuring out, what does actually make sense? And trying to do that in a way that isn't motivated by existing processes and power structures. And that's really challenging, right? Because these technologies are seen by a lot of people as a threat to the way that they currently do things—and potentially the way that they make money. And that is not to be dismissed.

So, the question is less about getting people to adopt new processes and tools than, how do we get people to actually see the potential upsides of new processes and tools? It's important to spend quite a bit of time on that question, involving as much of your organization from as many different levels of seniority and technical or non-technical expertise as you can.

SK: Some of our client work has focused on setting really good foundations for experimentation and adoption of new tools. When ChatGPT came out, we saw a lot of business leaders say that because there are big legal and ethical unknowns with it, nobody inside of the organization should use it until we figure out what it is.

We approached it differently, applying our human-centered design process to our own organization. We went to a bunch of different colleagues and asked them how they wanted these tools to fit into their work and what their ethical questions were. And then we created our guidelines. We actually have a full scorecard to help explain, legally, which tools you can use in which part of the design process, and with which types of data to keep everything secure.

We also created ethical frameworks, broadly educated the company on how to use them, and gave people the option to not use AI if they don’t feel ethically aligned. All of this is important, because whether or not you as a leader are proactively supporting the use of these tools, your employees are most definitely using them. And so it's better for you to support the evolution of your business than for you to say no, and then find out that it's happening anyway.

How do you keep up with emerging technology? What sources do you lean on, and how do you discover new trends?

JF: There are a few creators at the lay person level that I really love and that I think are full of value no matter your level of technical expertise: AI for Humans, which is a quite entertaining podcast, and The Neuron. If you want to look a little further into the research end of things, I really like this YouTube channel called Two Minute Papers. It’s focused more on visuals and simulation. There's also the AI hub, newsletter roundup of academic publications. I think it's also really important to keep an eye more broadly on what's happening in science and technology. One of my favorite accessible sources is Sean Carroll's podcast, Mindscape. He has scientists and researchers that span physics, biology, sociology, and philosophy. He features a real diversity of voices that bring up really interesting ideas that are currently in research and may impact our daily lives in the near future.

SK: The one thing that I would add is the thing I’ll get pushback for saying: I would also pay attention to sources that are not experts. These technologies have such potential to have large scale-impact. Lay people also have good, important, valid opinions about where technology might take us and how we've seen things like this play out in the past. So keep paying attention to the trusted sources, but also look around to discover the ways non-experts are using them.

Trying to figure out how to adopt AI tools to create the future of your organization? Get in touch. We’d love to help.

Late last year, IDEO U’s Creative Confidence podcast took a deep dive into the role of human-centered leadership in the age of AI.

But a purpose statement alone is not enough to guide your brand, organization, or team when you are making day-to-day decisions. You need a strategy to define your future and the path to get there.

Too often, we see organizations work tirelessly to fine-tune a single, perfect purpose statement, only to discover that when they roll it out, their teams don’t understand the choices necessary to fulfill the newly-minted purpose. Or, they jump straight from a lofty purpose into the nuts and bolts of annual planning and resource allocation without aligning on the key tenets that will direct their future.

Strategy is this essential middle step that gives purpose clarity, direction, and intention. If purpose is your grand, evergreen, motivating inspiration, your strategy is what helps you make daily decisions in service of that purpose. In other words, if purpose is your North Star, strategy is the trail up the mountain that gets you closer and closer to reaching it.

Whether you’re adjusting your strategy in response to a new purpose, or aligning a new strategy with your existing purpose, a design-led approach clarifies choices, increases stakeholder buy-in, and reveals opportunities. Here are three tips to help you get started:

Co-create to surface organizational wisdom 

When you’re engaging stakeholders across the organization to help bring your purpose to life in strategy, it’s critical to adopt a mindset of exploration and empathy. How are teams already living this purpose? What choices are colleagues already making that exemplify this purpose? How might this new purpose align with employees’ own goals and aspirations, and how could it help to fully unlock their collective potential? By engaging in collaborative interviews and co-design early and often, you’re tapping into existing internal wisdom and building connections that aid the adoption of the new strategy.

Recently, we collaborated with the leadership of an education organization to craft an innovation strategy. A new generation of senior leaders were excited about exploring opportunities for growth, while other leaders feared a new strategy would stray from their founder’s purpose. So, we took a three-pronged approach: First, we sat down with individual leaders to hear different perspectives, aspirations, and tensions. Then, we gathered the whole leadership group for a series of structured workshops. Each session started by reading the purpose statement, and using it as a guidepost for brainstorming and evaluating strategic directions. Finally, we enlisted small teams of executives to build, test, and iterate key elements of the strategy. By doing all three, we were able to help build equity that made it possible to implement the new strategy.

Evaluate the choices you made under your old strategy

Before you craft a new strategy, articulate the existing strategy using a framework like Roger Martin’s Playing To Win cascade. Looking at your organization’s past and present, think about when and where your organization has placed bets on a new market, audience, or offer. How have you historically created an advantage with your customers, and against your competitors? Then, with your new purpose in hand, re-examine these choices: What is aligned or misaligned? What is sustainable and what is vulnerable to growing competition?

We used this method when we were working with a specialty products conglomerate, helping them develop a purpose and strategy to embrace the needs of the climate era. This was a big undertaking that took several years of close collaboration across business units and executive leadership. To kick things off, and help everyone understand the status quo, we gave leaders 10 minutes, a blank Playing To Win cascade and a pen, and asked them to write down the major choices the company had made to get them to where they are today. Then we held a group discussion, assessing which parts of their current strategy and portfolio most aligned with their new climate-forward purpose—and which fell short. This exercise quickly exposed what needed to change and revealed new opportunities for the company to embrace its climate commitments, invest in its future growth, and live up to its purpose.

Visualize future possibilities to test your strategic choices 

IDEO COO Jennifer Riel often says, “The best way to face the future is to create it.” Start by trying to tease apart the ramifications of potential choices by creating stories of the future: quasi-fictional scenarios of short-term and long-term success where your organization is truly living its purpose. If you invest your time and effort in different places, what are potential growth trajectories your company might take? What are you seeing in the market or industry that you might need to adapt to overcome? What trends inside (or outside) your organization might continue to grow, and what transformational power might they have on your future?

When we were helping an international pharmaceutical company unify its many divisions under a single, focused purpose, we needed to illustrate the potential outcomes of different choices. So, our team crafted four different stories of the future, each focused on a different strategic bet. What if they decided to double-down on new drug discovery—what might the next five years look like? What if they chose to go all-in on a single area of historic expertise? By looking across the four different potential futures, their senior leadership was able to compare and contrast, discussing what felt most feasible, inspiring, and aligned to their purpose, leading to a single future they were excited to build together.

Purpose and strategy have to work hand-in-hand. One without the other could lead to stagnation or confused paralysis across the organization. Together, they offer inspiration, intention, and a clear path to tangible choices. 

Congratulations! You have a purpose statement—or something kinda-sorta-close, you think.

Most captains today are choosing to rearrange the deck chairs, and draft strongly worded memos about maritime safety. Meanwhile, the iceberg looms.

Let's be clear: Changing course isn't easy. The crew is comfortable with their routines, the shareholders expect their smooth-sailing dividends, and frankly, it's hard to be the captain who ruins dinner. But we know what happens to ships that prioritize temporary comfort over necessary action.

The environmental challenges we face—from biodiversity collapse to climate injustice—aren't distant threats on the horizon anymore. They're here; we are living it. Yet in many boardrooms across the globe, the response remains painfully predictable: another strategy document, another net-zero pledge, another set of targets conveniently set for 2030, 2050, and beyond.

Yes, we have global treaties in place. Yes, we have ESG goals. And yes, humankind has the technological prowess to get us to net zero. But let's face it—what's holding us back isn't a lack of solutions. It's a lack of decisions. Decisions that can only come from bold, brave leaders.

We need leaders daring enough to plot an entirely new course, challenge the fundamental assumptions of modern business, and pioneer ways of creating value that serve both planet and profit. We need leaders who have the courage to turn the ship now, even if they are the first captain to break formation. 

An uncomfortable truth 

Today, most sustainability initiatives fail not because of a lack of technology or resources, but because of leadership paralysis. We're witnessing three critical traps that keep organizations stuck.

The first is the quarterly trap, where even well-intentioned leaders find themselves caught between climate commitments and earnings expectations. Watch any earnings call, and you'll hear the tension: ambitious sustainability goals carefully balanced against short-term financial targets. It's like trying to change course while keeping everyone's champagne glasses from spilling; this balancing act keeps us frozen in place.

Then there's innovation theater, where organizations launch sustainability programs that look transformative, but stop short of making fundamental change. The bottled water industry is a perfect example; it highlights recycled plastic bottles and "eco-friendly" packaging, but doesn't address the fundamental waste of bottling and shipping water globally when most developed nations have clean tap water. It's like tying down those deck chairs while avoiding the bigger conversation.

Finally, there's delegation delusion. Over the past year, I've met dozens of brilliant CSOs with ambitious plans, but sustainability can't be delegated to a department, no matter how capable its leader. Imagine trying to digitally transform a company by creating a "digital department," while everyone else works on paper. Real transformation requires sustainability to be woven into every decision, from the boardroom to the factory floor.

The new leadership imperative

Despite all these traps, change is happening. There are brave leaders out there—few, but growing—who are making incredible impact. At IDEO, we're fortunate to partner, work, and be friends with some of these pioneers, and I've noticed distinct patterns in how they lead. Here's what brave climate leadership looks like:

1. Embracing discomfort

When Allbirds stamped all of its products with their carbon footprint—like a nutrition label for the planet—the company made their environmental impact as visible as their price tag. This radical transparency forced the company to completely rethink its design and manufacturing, leading to the world's first carbon-negative EVA foam in footwear. And Allbirds didn't stop there. The company open-sourced its carbon footprint tools to other companies, making it possible for other companies to share their impact.

2. Reinventing the core business 

Recently, I sat down with a leader from a world-leading consumer technology company who told me, "The future I see looks nothing like our current product line. And I'm ready to build that future, even if it means dismantling what drives our profits today." This willingness to reimagine the company’s foundation extends to how it operates. Smart leaders are putting sustainability targets on equal footing with financial ones in executive compensation—because real change happens when missing a climate goal hurts as much as missing a profit target.

3. Creating better products that happen to be sustainable 

Method's concentrated cleaning products show how sustainability can drive innovation. By removing the water (which consumers have at home, anyway), the company created products that save money through reduced shipping and storage costs, while simultaneously cutting carbon emissions from transportation and using less packaging material. Customers choose their products because they're simply better, and they happen to use less water and plastic. There’s no compromise—only added benefit. 

4. Making bold bets on the future

Let's be honest—it's daunting to reinvent an entire supply chain or revamp your existing infrastructure to become sustainable . But when CVS Health, Target, and Walmart decided to create the "Beyond the Bag" challenge, aimed at eliminating plastic bags, they showed the entire retail industry what's possible. But taking bold bets isn't just about changing your own operations. Over the past years, I've met incredible young female leaders like Dr. Anne Schauer-Gimenez from Mango Materials and Julia Marsh from Sway, who are revolutionizing how we think about materials. Smart leaders aren't waiting for these solutions to be proven at scale—they're actively investing in and scaling them themselves. Because one day soon, the choice won't be whether to change, but whether you still can.

5. Having fun doing It 

Look at Rewiring America's approach to electrification. Instead of another doom-and-gloom climate message or boring, beige-colored Times New Roman ESG reports, they're making home electrification feel electric. Their tools—including an easy-to-use calculator and a personal electrification planner—don't just show carbon savings—they show families how much money they'll save by switching to heat pumps and induction stoves. When I recently connected with their VP of Product Tom Mercer, his energy about electrifying millions of low-income houses was contagious. And it's no accident that the company's head of marketing cofounded Upworthy and served as managing editor of The Onion—this fresh perspective brings wit and humor to what could be a dry technical topic. Sometimes saving the planet is fun.

6. Listen to customers—for real

As a design director at IDEO, I spend countless hours supporting our design teams in research sessions, listening to people talk about their everyday choices. And let me tell you—the narrative that "people don't care about sustainability" is not just wrong, it's dangerous business thinking. The next generation isn't just asking for better options—they're demanding them. They're reading labels, questioning materials, and calling out greenwashing on social media. Deloitte's 2024 research shows 64 percent of Gen Z will pay more for sustainable products, and 25 percent have cut ties with businesses over unsustainable practices. This isn't about a small group of eco-warriors anymore—this is mainstream consumer behavior shifting before our eyes. Miss these signals, and you'll miss the future of your market. Just ask the fashion brands being called out daily on social media, or the consumer goods companies watching their market share shift to sustainable alternatives.

The real work starts now

It's inspiring to hear about startups and innovators blazing new trails. But the real challenge—and opportunity—lies in transforming century-old organizations. We don't need more sustainability strategies. We need leaders from every industry to become the brave new captains of the climate era

The climate crisis offers a stark choice for leaders: Be brave enough to transform your organization now, or watch it become irrelevant in a world that's already changing. At IDEO, we're energized by leaders ready to make this transformation. If you're ready to design solutions that will define the next era of business, we'd love to work with you to bring that vision to life. Let's create meaningful change together.

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Imagine you're the captain of a massive ship. You've spotted dangerous waters ahead, but changing course means disrupting your passengers' champagne dinner.

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.