Increasingly, digital spaces are proving detrimental to youth mental health. By co-designing with youth, Kooth and IDEO set out to flip the script, creating a positive digital space for young people to safely explore their mental wellbeing. 

When Kooth, IDEO, and Blackbird, IDEO’s longtime development partner, first started working on the project, the window of opportunity was narrow, and the stakes were high. The group was up against a nine-week deadline to create a working proof of concept app. Also on the line: a $188 million contract with the Department of Health Care Services (DHCS)—one that would open an entirely new line of business for Kooth. 

The app needed to do more than demonstrate functionality—it needed to prove its value. To ensure that they were creating an asset that truly fit the needs of young people, the team turned to an initial cohort of 13-25 year-old co-designers who explored early features, created video diaries, and shared their questions about and experiences with mental health. These young people often gravitated toward self-service tools that helped them take action based on their feelings. With their feedback, the team created new expressions of clinically-validated behavioral health tools like journaling, breathwork and white noise—and built novel tools, such as Starboard, an expressive drawing tool and a nod to art therapy. 

The team took inspiration from content the co-designers liked to consume, such as story-driven video games that enable freedom of exploration, deepened by a unifying mythology. That led them to a constellation theme, which made the experience more intriguing and playful. The co-designers also recommended a dark color palette, because they preferred exploring the app at night. 

With these insights, the team refined the proof of concept, and then conducted a one-week pilot with another 50 young people across California. Their positive feedback gave the State the confidence to invest in a $188 million, four-year contract for Kooth to bring the app to a platform at scale. 

Over the next year, the team engaged another 150 young people to help design, shape, and test the app. At the same time, Kooth and IDEO created a clinical oversight group, which included a pediatrician, therapists, and other clinical specialists. This group anchored the platform in the practices of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), cultivating psychological flexibility—the mindful acceptance of positive and negative emotions. Young people are invited to complete short reflections and surveys throughout their journey with the app, which includes rigorous, science-backed measurements to assess the therapeutic benefits.

Behind the scenes, the team developed a clinical-facing service and digital platform that empowers Kooth’s peer specialists, social workers, community curators, and clinicians to support the youth experience, all while protecting privacy and confidentiality. They also navigated a complex landscape of state requirements and government legislation, ensuring that the platform could cover topics like substance abuse and gender identity, and that users could access coaching within 24 hours, and choose from a diverse set of experts. 

The last step was to select a name that worked across multiple languages, trademarks, and competitor branding, and didn’t come off as a mental health service, something the youth co-designers believed was critical. IDEO and Kooth landed on Soluna, a name that alludes to the app’s presence in both the bright (“sol” for sun) and the dark times (“luna” for moon). 

Now, Soluna is available for free to all youth in California, and the state has set ambitious targets for reaching all young people at scale. Soluna is a living platform that will continue to receive product and design updates for years to come, all deeply rooted in youth co-design.

The US Surgeon General named mental health “the defining public health crisis of our time,” and cited social media, online bullying, and the isolation exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic as major drivers that have significant negative outcomes for youth.
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In California alone, more than 284,000 youth cope with major depression. 66% of kids with depression do not receive treatment. Between 2019-2020, the suicide rate for kids ages 10-18 increased by 20%.
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In 2022, California Governor Gavin Newsom’s Master Plan for Kids’ Mental Health set aside $4.6 billion to increase access to mental health and substance abuse support, the largest commitment to youth mental health ever made by a state.

94%

of proof-of-concept app users would recommend the Soluna app to a friend, and believe that engaging with the app would be a positive addition to their daily/weekly routine

6 million

young people in California had access to Soluna at launch in January 2024

Creating a better cervical cancer screening experience is an important mission, but also a challenging one. Not only would Teal have to address the regulations that face healthcare device companies, it would also need to build a comprehensive telehealth platform and a physical product—a wand that could easily collect an adequate cell sample, even in the hands of an untrained person. 

The first challenge was to create the wand. The device would need to do a lot: It’s impossible for a person to see their own cervix, so the user would have to be able to find the cervix blind, collect the sample themselves, and remove the wand from their bodies without contaminating it on other parts of their anatomy. Because this is something users are likely to do in their bathrooms, where there is no space to lie down, they would need to be able to use the device while standing—and with one hand. From the beginning, the IDEO team set out to design functional, testable prototypes to make sure the idea was viable, and incorporate diverse voices into the research process, including trans, minority, and disabled women. 

Because the product is meant for people who aren’t medical professionals, the team worked to design something as simple, intuitive, and unintimidating as possible. They used a 3-D printer to create multiples of every prototype, autoclaves to make sure that the designs they were creating were sterile, and leaned into shapes women are already used to, like the cylindrical shape of a tampon. The wand they created has that same basic form, but with a soft sponge that the user can deploy with the turn of a dial to collect the sample, then close to protect it from contamination on the way out of the body.

With working prototypes in hand, Teal set out to test their efficacy. 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 them over the speculum, the device doctors typically use during a screening. Some 92 percent said if they knew the results were equal they would prefer self-collection, while 87 percent reported they would stay current with screening if Teal Wand was an option. Self-collection took the vast majority under two minutes to complete, and 97% of study participants reported it was very easy or easy to use. The Teal Wand recently received a patent for its unique design.

The IDEO team also worked on the packaging and unboxing experience, which plays an important role in supporting the user through the self-screening process. The team built in thoughtful design cues to give users reassurance that they are using the wand correctly, and to provide the same level of confidence they would have in the results of an in-clinic screening. 

In January 2023, Teal raised an $8.8 million seed round from Serena Ventures, Emerson Collective, and Metrodora, and later that year, launched a nationwide clinical trial with leading health organizations including Johns Hopkins University, Yale University, the University of Colorado, Washington University, and others. In 2025, The Teal Wand became the first FDA-authorized device for at-home cervical cancer screening, with virtual medical provider support. Today, it's available in all 50 states. i’s an enormous step toward its North Star: catching cervical cancer earlier and saving lives.

Cervical cancer is nearly 100% preventable when it’s caught early, yet one in four women in the US are not up to date on their screenings.
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More than 12,000 people in the US are being diagnosed with cervical cancer every year, and more than 4,000 people die of the disease, which disproportionately impacts Black, Asian, and Hispanic women.
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More than half of cervical cancer cases are found in women that are not up-to-date on their screenings.

97%

of clinical study participants said the Teal Wand was very easy or easy to use.

87%

of participants said they would be more likely to stay current with screening guidelines if Teal Wand was an option.

94%

of participants said they would choose to collect their own sample from home rather than the current standard of care where a clinician collects it in-office.

2025

The Teal Wand becomes the first FDA authorized device for at-home cervical cancer screening, with virtual medical provider support.

Cities United already had a strong foundation with its stated mission, vision, and values. IDEO brought those to life with a new visual and verbal brand identity system that celebrates Cities United’s inclusive approach to building relationships and reimagining public safety.

To help Cities United with its verbal identity, the IDEO team defined the organization's voice, tone, and key messages, making it easier to tell its story more consistently and clearly, a crucial step toward engaging stakeholders.

To define the new visual identity, the team created a new logo, a letter C composed of interwoven shapes that represent the three tenets of their vision—“safe, happy, and hopeful;” a new design language that references city grids; and a typographic system anchored by the typeface VTC DuBois, inspired by W.E.B. DuBois’s own custom lettering and designed by the Black-owned Vocal Type Co. The team also designed a color palette that embodies the textures of city life with hues reminiscent of asphalt, sunrise, and brick. 

To amplify the refreshed branding, the team designed a new responsive website, citiesunited.org. The intuitive site shares the organization’s mission, resources, ongoing projects, and partner network, inviting stakeholders to join in their transformative work. IDEO also created a video to humanize Cities United’s mission and showcase its nationwide impact. It underscores the unity, resilience, and hope embodied by the organization through a chorus of voices.

This comprehensive rebranding widens Cities United’s reach and impact, helping the organization share its goal of creating safe, healthy, hopeful communities for young Black men, boys, and their families, and reintroduces the organization to a national audience. 

The Cities United work was supported by IDEO’s Racial Justice Impact Fund, part of a commitment IDEO made in 2020 to ​​address systemic racism and advance equity within our own organization, our client work, and beyond.

Cities United is committed to reducing the epidemic of homicides and shootings among young Black men and boys ages 14-to-24 by 50%.

Between 2009 and 2019, the number of Black children who “did not go to school at least one day in the past month because they felt unsafe at school or on their way to or from school” increased by 84%, according to Cities United.

Homicide is the leading cause of death for Black men and boys from birth to age 44, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

2023 SF Design Week Award

In recognition of IDEO’s brand work with Citizens United

Sleep is a critical resource for shift workers—and their employers, too. Together, IDEO and Somni worked directly with people with acute and chronic sleep challenges to create concepts that could support their sleep goals, and provide employers with the means to improve employee health.

When IDEO and Somni first partnered, the startup was an early-stage company, so the team started small, with focused sprints and workshops to redesign the core aspects of the company and product offerings. The team interviewed shift workers about their sleep patterns, which can vary quite a bit. Even when people keep to a specific schedule on work days, they often have to change their patterns on days off to spend time with family and friends, leading to a very disruptive sleep cycle. Research revealed that many third shift workers were dealing with sleep and health issues, but also a pervasive “machismo” culture,  pressure to “tough it out,” and a reliance on energy drinks to deal with lack of sleep. 

To address those issues, the team designed a digital experience for sleep cohorts, support groups where members could share their experiences and sleep strategies, and work with a coach and sponsor who already had been through the program. The platform analyzed workers’ data, and provided AI-enabled recommendations for improving their sleep. The big takeaway? Data by itself wasn’t necessarily helpful, and could be confusing for folks who were less digitally-fluent. Providing context, like a calendar that displayed sleep experiments at a glance, was crucial. 

The IDEO team also created a new user experience for a genetic testing program that could uncover factors associated with sleep issues. Somni aims to use a saliva-based genetic test to monitor for DNA damage caused by circadian disruption, then leverage its sleep improvement program to prevent further damage. Because biomarker testing is a differentiating offer for Somni, it was extremely important that the team get it right, both to make sure that users could understand its utility, and for Somni to provide real value. The design challenge was unique—and not just because of data privacy concerns. Presenting data about DNA damage in a non-human-centered way could increase the anxiety workers had around their sleep.

At the end of the project, Somni leveraged the insights the IDEO team surfaced to improve products like its sleep coaching service, and to refine its biomarker testing offering. Based on this work, Somni has also created a pilot with a Fortune 100 company, which is currently in progress, as it works to mitigate the ill effects of disrupted sleep for employees and the companies they work for.

In the short-term, circadian rhythm disruption leads to an array of jet-lag-like symptoms, and in the long-run, it may contribute to weight gain, obesity, metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular disease.

It also impairs people’s ability to work, affecting productivity, creativity, and the overall work environment. Productivity loss can lead to employer baseline healthcare costs that are 26% higher, and over time, insomnia can result in an average cost of $4,267 more per employee per year.

In June 2019, the International Agency for Research on Cancer classified shift work as a probable carcinogen.

75%

user retention in Somni's sleep program

$2,450

savings per year per employee for users who complete the program

33%

improvement in sleep quality, and 41 more minutes per night

I was fortunate enough to work closely with Liu on an art installation about food's carbon footprint when she was a Researcher in Residence at IDEO's Design for Food Studio. The piece was exhibited at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco in collaboration with the Perennial, a sustainability-focused restaurant. Thanks to that project, I became an expert in engineering ways to pop balloons, and also a major Liu fan. I caught up with her to hear more about what inspires her work.

In one sentence, who are you?

I am an artist, long-distance runner, sci-fi dreamer, and corgi-lover.

What do you do? How did you learn it?

I am incredibly lucky to have my dream job: thinking deeply about technology, and making the art to express it. I followed a meandering path. First, I learned how to express ideas visually and spatially by studying architecture at Harvard, and from there, I became a VR geek. Eventually, I ended up at MIT Media Lab, where I started making bioart.

The female body has long been a source of contention, where opposing ideologies in religion, politics, and cultural differences often play out. In this video, Ani explores what would happen if women could control something inherently male: Spermatozoa.

3 favorite possessions?

1. My best friend's wisdom tooth
2. My mother's family album
3. A collection of smells I've bottled from those I love

What does a typical work session look like?

The beginning of my projects involve a lot of research. The process often starts with a large cup of coffee, a stack of papers, and my sketchbook in hand. In the next phase, I am often found visiting other scientists' labs to ask questions. I've sought advice on everything from how to use an EEG headset to read brainwaves properly to trying to score the right plant hormones to make flowers blossom on command.

The next phase is an enormous amount of exploring, prototyping, and failing. In the last phase, I hunker down and crank towards an impending deadline. It is often the most stressful part, but it's full of adrenaline, and my favorite.

How do you get over creative block?

I have the benefit of working across many disciplines, and I find that my love of one thing often inspires the next. If I am stuck debugging code, I'll draw, and the meditative act often untangles a logic block. When I am stuck on expressing an idea visually, I like to read physics textbooks (I know, this is unbearably geeky) to find inspiration in the way physicists express radically abstract concepts.

I also love looking for synaesthetic inspirations. I have a large collection of perfumes and scents, and sometimes breathing one in will trigger an unexpected thought or emotion, and my mind will spiral into new territories.

What was the last item on your to do list?

To plate and incubate fresh bacteria for a new art piece. I have been invited to participate in a group show on self portraits, and I am prototyping a living work of art based on my microbial signature.

How do you see the world in 2078?

I can't claim to predict the future, but I hope the approaching inevitability of continued automation and augmented intelligence will cause us to deeply question what it means to be human, and what is worth pursuing in our lifetimes.

What’s your number one bucket list item?

To finally share my life with a corgi! The top contending names are Stardust and MOSFET. I would also love to write a science fiction novel in my lifetime.

Who are you creative crushin’ on lately?

Tania Bruguera is an amazing Cuban artist and political artist whose strength and solid dedication to expressing the truth and the narrative of marginalized populations inspires me every day. In every studio I stay in, I pin up a small image of her work because the images hit me at my emotional core, but also remind me that art and design can have a profound impact on the world.

"Art is how you can see and feel the future," says Ani Liu in her TED Talk, "Smelfies" (if you haven't seen it, go watch that now). Drawing on synthetic biology, AI, and the microbiome, Liu crafts multi-sensory art and experiences that are at once beautiful, poetic, and a total mind-bender.

After outing myself as the lone office introvert, I expected a look of horror to pass over my coworker’s face. Instead she gave a knowing nod and smile, and said she’s heard this sentiment so often here that she calls IDEO an “extroverted office full of introverts.”

I was stunned. The majority of my colleagues are introverts too? How did they manage our everyday activities, like brainstorms? The goal of a brainstorm is to uncover new opportunities by bringing in fresh perspectives, but as a group activity it can make introverts clam up.

Inspired by Susan Cain’s research on the power of introverts and how solitude, like collaboration, is a crucial ingredient to creativity, I asked my fellow designers what strategies they use to incorporate solitude into the most extroverted of activities.

Here are five ways they've adapted the brainstorm for introverts:

1. The Silent Circuit

Ask each person to write a “how might we” question on a sticky note (IDEO’s standard brainstorm kickoff question) and post it around the room. For about 15 minutes, everyone walks around, silently adding as many ideas as they can to each prompt. When time’s up, everyone returns to their question and discovers a bounty of new ideas that their colleagues have given them. This approach works well for keeping large groups engaged, while providing quiet, focused time to those who want it.

2. Musical Chairs

Breaking up a big group helps encourage quieter voices. To limit the number of people in a brainstorm, split into groups of three or four and play musical chairs. Post a handful of "how might we" questions around the room, assign a group to each one, and start the music. When it stops, rotate to the next station with your team. That way, there are never too many voices to contend with, but a lot of ideas are shared. Leave time at the end for people to wander around the room and add any remaining ideas.

3. Get to the Bottom of the Stack

This is the most exhaustive brainstorming activity on this list—it can take up to two hours—but can also generate the most ideas. The goal: Each person fills an entire stack of Post-its with new ideas. (A “stack” can be a full Post-it stack divided into halves or thirds, depending on how much time you have.)

After the questions are introduced, everyone goes heads-down and captures ideas. It's a lot of silence, but it allows those who prefer to think and brainstorm silently the time and space to do it. When everyone has reached the bottom of their stack, one person volunteers to share first. As she presents, others add similar ideas or build on top of them to draw out themes.

The exercise can be a great empathy builder. For a project about helping high school students build purpose in their life, a team used the prompt, “What are your most awkward memories from high school?”

4. Office Hours

This one came from Fast Company: Instead of asking people to commit to a crowded, hour-long session, reserve a space and ask folks to stop by for 5-10 minutes to contribute ideas—in between meetings, on the way to lunch, etc. This gives people permission to come and go as they please, and limits the number of voices in the room at one time. To make participation even easier, introduce the questions a day in advance—over email or in a calendar invite—to give people time to think.

5. The Slow Build

Post a question in a shared space in the office—the kitchen, in the bathroom, by the bike rack—and allow people to add ideas over several days. At our San Francisco studio, we post monthly questions and prompts in one of the private, unisex bathrooms in our office. The questions often ask people to reflect: “I feel loved when…” and “I show my love by…” Or, “What’s something new you want to try this year?” As an introvert, it’s my porcelain palace.

How do you create the conditions that can help everyone feel welcome and heard at work? I’d love to hear your ideas.

Thanks to Charla Bear, Minnie Bredouw, Deirdre Cerminaro, Eileen Farrell, Peter Macdonald, and Heather Ross for their contributions and inspiration.

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One day, I confided in a coworker: “I feel like an impostor in such an extroverted office.” The culture here is built on constant interaction—every question is an opportunity for collaboration, we work exclusively in teams, and our brainstorms encourage everyone to think out loud. It exhausts me.

What could be more satisfying than a blueberry in every waffle hole? My son Tom took his time to arrange everything just perfectly before gobbling it down. Even if you are not meticulous enough to do it yourself, I'd be surprised if the same idea didn't cross your mind. It makes me think about all of the times that I've thoughtlessly (or thoughtfully) constructed my own bites—optimizing for flavor, making sure that there are goodies in every bite, until my plate is clean.

Human-centered design requires us to observe human behavior with beginner's eyes, so that we can spot the innate ways people interact with the world around them. We call these intuitive and unconscious reactions Thoughtless Acts, and IDEO designers collect photos of them to inspire their work.

As a result, I spent most of my time finding problems, real or imagined, and adding them to a growing list of things I would solve to make my mark. My notebooks from those days suggest that I believed I would be a hero one day, but for now, was resigned to suffer through unrewarding and lonely work. I was an asshole. And you get what you give.

I had started a project with Quiksilver, and with that came a new relationship with a very successful creative director, Erik (now a good friend). Erik invested in inspiration for himself and everyone on his team. He made sure he was creatively nourished—maybe even selfishly so, if that can be said in a positive way—and emulating the kind of creative culture he wanted to instill. It was mutual and reciprocal among his team.

He inspired me, too. I wrote a simple note on a Post-It and stuck it to my computer:

“Be the leader you wish you had.”

I know. It’s all Gandhi and shit (apologies, Gandhi, for any disservice in my comparison). But it shifted my thinking radically. I made a commitment to own my happiness and creative experience.

That week, over regular tears-and-beers drinks with a colleague, we were laughing over an article in Vice called “Wear Dare” in which a couple of friends dressed one another for a day and described their embarrassing moments. We wondered what that would be like at work…

“Let’s do it,” I said. Following my new directive.

We goaded each other through nervous fear, laughter, and finally action… what if this goes wrong? Or worse, what if it goes right?

We invited everyone to put his or her name in a hat and drew at random…

Here’s what happened:

It was the
best
day
ever.

It was joyous and unserious. It wasn’t about fixing; it was about sparking something and letting go.

Only four people didn’t participate out of a studio of nearly 60. I am sure they regretted it! And looking back, I believe that day was a key moment in a process of transformation for myself, using my position for fun instead of misery. It was that raw creative act that broke the dam for me.

Around that time, the project leader for the Quiksilver work came to me with the idea of traveling the California coast in an RV—you know, “as research.” I knew he expected me to say no. And it would certainly lose us a bit of money, but I suppressed the leaderly should and followed my new directive and said yes.

My landlubber colleagues got to be surfers for a few weeks. I joined the team on the road and reconnected with my surf-teen years in San Diego. More importantly, surfing every day, sketching in the sunset over beer and pizza in roadside campgrounds with a bunch of other (mostly) dudes, trading ideas until we fell asleep in the RV, and fomenting the growing optimism and joy of building play into our workday led to the design of great concepts for the client—some of which went to market.

Other changes followed.

We hired some amazing people, who we never would have hired prior, as interviews shifted from picking people apart to finding and supporting possibility.

For a colleague’s wedding we dressed up in Tyvek suits and marched, single file, to the courthouse through Cambridge, MA. (That's what you see in the image up top).

We did design fiction exercises over lunch. The culture began to be one that craved creative pokes to encourage the flow of great ideas.

The studio evolved from being a quiet participant in the business to a creatively rowdy collection of designers from Boston producing content that the rest of IDEO references.

How we were began to shape what we did.

So much had changed with that simple note to myself.

I’m not suggesting that dressing your colleagues in thrift store pantsuits will fix everything. Nor that you need to hit your nadir and be ready to quit before you can find the inspiration to lead from your creative self.

In fact, this is not really about you or me at all.

This is about what I learned the hard way: That great creative leadership is about letting go of that nagging mental image you have of what you are supposed to do. It’s about believing in others, and focusing on fanning the flames of creative, weird, exothermic people, rather than on fixing problems.

How you approach your day is how you will live your life.

If you see your role as a list of broken things that need to be fixed, life will deliver you nothing but. But if you actively seek creativity and fun, and enjoy a little embarrassing dress up now and again, you might just find yourself successfully in the middle of the vibrant culture you’d once wished for.

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When I was a fresh, newly appointed lead in our Boston studio, I struggled to have much fun. I believed I was a fixer of broken things, thinking, and people. The story I told myself was that I was a martyr for the fun others were having while I dealt with the important leaderly stuff.

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.