Midea, one of China’s largest appliance manufacturers, wanted to identify growth opportunities in the domestic consumer market, while focusing on people’s cultural beliefs around health and well-being. During the course of the project, IDEO found that Midea could play a key role in building a healthier nation.

The team set out to design potential future products for Tong (“through, whole, and to understand”) that are built around the basic themes of eating, breathing, and being: an easy-to-use, hassle-free herbal tea dispenser, an air balancer that improves and balances the quality of air in the home, and a body-balancing mobile phone app that encourages users to rebalance their body condition where needed, through movements created with the Chinese philosophies of well-being in mind.

The Tong project was featured extensively in the press, and opened further conversations with Midea about creating new value and extending into new markets.

Put food on the table or keep the furnace running on a frigid day? It’s an unfortunate choice many low-income families in Flint, Michigan, face.

To help customers in Flint and other Michigan towns stay on top of their utility bills and better understand the relationship between their energy consumption and the resulting costs, Consumers Energy partnered with IDEO and utility assistance provider The Heat and Warmth Fund (THAW) to create an innovative pilot billing program called Clear Control in late 2013.

The pilot was designed with three major human-centered changes to the traditional utility experience:

• Instead of monthly bills, participants received two bills per month. Shorter billing periods allowed for smaller, more frequent payments, helping customers match available funds with their ability to pay.
• Daily text updates on energy usage and bill amounts kept consumption top of mind.
• Consumers Energy offered personalized, in-home audits to help customers make low-cost, high-impact changes to their energy bills.

A year later, the results of the pilot are energizing. Clear Control participants accumulated no new debt, while the control group owed $300; pilot customers used 20 percent less electricity, reducing their bills by $200 per year; and 95 percent of participants paid their bills in full and on time, compared with 35 percent in the control group. The utility company simultaneously benefited by avoiding arrearages, late-payment fees, and shutoffs. Consumers plans to incorporate Clear Control lessons into its overall energy assistance program design and development moving forward.

"It’s no longer ‘me’ against ‘them’—now it’s ‘us,’" said one Clear Control participant.

In 1980, Apple asked IDEO to develop a mouse for their radical new computer, the Lisa. Previous attempts at mouse design, by Douglas Englebart and Xerox PARC, yielded results that were too expensive and hard to make. The Apple mouse needed to be more reliable and less than 10 percent of the cost of the earlier versions.

To start, the design team created a cheaper, much-improved mechanism that would operate the mouse, and found that a complex, plastic "ribcage" would hold the pieces together. The team similarly tested and refined the mouse’s other key components, from the audible and tactile click of the button to the rubberized coating on the ball. A record turntable spun for days, logging “mouse miles” to check the reliability of the electromechanical assembly.

The resulting mouse proved mechanically and economically sound and was changed only slightly when adapted for use with the first Macintosh computer. The basic mechanism design is used in virtually all mechanical mouses produced to date.

Food is the heart of most cultures. In China, one of the oldest cultures in the world, food is central to family gatherings and celebrations. It’s what binds people, a tangible way of showing love and respect. But in recent years, the Chinese food industry has suffered from concerns around safety.

Two siblings, Harn and Anmao Sun, set out on an ambitious venture: to create a trusted source of food in China and, by setting an example, to instigate a movement around conscious farming practices. The American-born entrepreneurs launched Hunter Gatherer, a restaurant and retail food space built around a transparent supply chain, from farm to table to grocery shelves. The venture is based on growing and serving what they call real food: The ingredients are chemical-free and come from known and trusted sources—food they’d eat themselves. The purpose of the venture is simple: to serve people real food that is their right.

Having studied and worked in the US, Harn and Anmao grew accustomed to browsing farmers markets on Saturday mornings or picking up a burrito at Chipotle. But when they returned to China, they were unsure about the safety of the food they were eating.

“In China, you wouldn’t go to a food stand, because you’d be concerned about the ingredients,” Anmao said. “You can’t take the safety for granted.”

Hunter Gatherer’s very existence challenges bedrock assumptions about how food is produced in China. A long and depressing list of scandals—milk contaminated with melamine, pork produced from diseased pigs, used cooking oil repackaged and sold as new—has rocked the public trust.

“In China, agriculture is going through a huge change,” Anmao said. “In the US, agriculture operations are regulated. Farmers’ practices are regulated. If they use pesticides, there are limits because these farmers understand that once a certain threshold is hit, additional pesticides will not yield more crops. But in China, pesticide use came about 30 years after the US and Europe, and because of a lack of full understanding, farmers in China incorrectly operate under the assumption that more pesticides means more crop yields. Also, with over 250 million farmers in China, it becomes immensely difficult to properly regulate everyone.”

New Ventures

Harn and Anmao wanted to restore trust in the simple act of eating in China, and they came to IDEO to build a scalable business based on that vision. This was essentially a startup, a shared commitment between IDEO and Hunter Gatherer.

“I’ve lived in Shanghai for the past seven years, and as a relatively active and health-conscious person, I’ve had to invest quite a bit of time in finding food that I trust,” said Charles Hayes, managing director of IDEO Shanghai. “That investment has been both in the time it takes to research the sources of ingredients but also a literal investment in paying a high price for imported food just for that extra peace of mind.”

Anmao and Harn took up residence in the IDEO Shanghai offices to incubate their business. Together with IDEO designers, they tested packaging, cooked countless meals, and found ways to introduce unfamiliar ingredients to Chinese consumers. They discussed different concepts of lunch and dinner, and how notions of freshness in Chinese culture might affect cold-storage systems. In IDEO’s prototyping kitchen, the teams tested all manner of different foods, flavors, colors, mixes, and price points, and they brought consumers in to try them out. IDEO designers, along with the founding team, also worked on the brand and positioning of what would eventually become the Hunter Gatherer enterprise—its location, human resources, and marketing strategies.

As the restaurant concept came together, finding the right food sources had to be addressed. Traditional agriculture couldn’t be trusted; organic certifications were available on the black market, and safety protocols around chemical use were nonexistent. Anmao and Harn decided to invest in their own farms. They met with farmers, asked questions about their methods, and walked in the fields to see for themselves. Eventually they settled on two plots of land outside Shanghai and began developing more than 80 different crops to be used in the restaurant.

From Seed to Table

When it came time to find the right space for the first location, Anmao and Harn discovered an open, airy storefront on Anfu Road in Shanghai’s tree-lined former French Concession area. They designed and built a retail space and kitchen, and along with IDEO designers, they trained the staff and organized workflows. The staff set the tables with Mason jars filled with flowers, hung photographs of the farmers who grew the food, and put up a sign that showcases the percentage of vegetables coming directly from the Hunter Gatherer farms, already more than 70 percent in less than a year after opening.

Customers can shop for fresh vegetables, locally sourced and imported canned and jarred goods, bins of cereal, freshly made smoothies, artisan sauces, and exotic chocolates. Upstairs, they can feast on delicious dishes in the homey restaurant.

Reviews have been glowing. One customer raved about the machine that grinds fresh nuts. Another loved the open space, the “good vibes,” and the refreshing cucumber water. Young people go there on dates, and families return for the delicious menu variety.

The convivial space has blossomed into more than just a restaurant and grocery store. It’s become a gathering place of sorts, both for the community and for partners who share the same vision. Farmers and food purveyors are invited to showcase their products at seasonal events and to mingle with customers and share recipes and stories.

“Hunter Gatherer has come to symbolize a kind of lifestyle the Chinese people have been looking for,” said Eugene Lin, an IDEO business designer. “A place they can enjoy hanging out with friends, as well as a movement and mission they can stand behind.”

A Digital Future

This is just the beginning of the venture. The plan is to open 40 more locations throughout China. But the vision for Hunter Gatherer’s growth is bigger than brick-and-mortar restaurants—where the business will truly scale is in the digital space. Eventually, the plan is to launch a Hunter Gatherer online grocery store from which anyone can buy food grown from trusted sources.

“We have to create trust with the consumer. It’s the most difficult and most valuable thing to do in China, especially with food,” Anmao said. “Our brick-and-mortar locations will establish that increased trust. Then we can go online and grow the idea to the rest of the country.”

Will Hunter Gatherer have a hand in changing the way that the world’s most populous nation thinks about food? Its principles are already spreading, from neighboring farmers adopting more sustainable planting methods, to a growing market for products like wine.

But the true sign of success will be almost invisible—the moment when an increase in demand will result in safe food for everyone and when real food becomes commonplace.

The question was a daily prompt, an experiment to help teams to have more candid conversations and increase their ability to collaborate with each other. Instead, an awkward silence followed.

The exercise was part of a partnership exploring the power of making with a global healthcare company. Together, we were designing for the organizational culture the company wants to have to achieve their strategic ambitions. This team’s role was to instill new ways of working for the whole company. They wrote the culture code. But they couldn’t quite articulate how they themselves were living it. Yet.

Their trouble answering the question wasn’t a failure—this work is hard. And it requires changing ingrained behaviors every day. So together, we worked with the team to make culture change tangible through real-world experiments (not just decks and frameworks) that helped ignite new behaviors through actions, not words.

What does that mean, exactly? As Roger L. Martin, strategy advisor to some of the world’s most successful organizations, explains, “The truth about culture is that the only way you can change it is by changing the way individuals work with one another. If you can change that, then you will find the culture has changed.” Changing how individuals work takes more than words, or artifacts, or processes (although those things definitely have a role to play). It requires action. That’s where design comes in. And that’s where our team started, by making a series of cultural experiments.

The goal was to learn about how we can change people’s behaviors and enable them to work differently. We collaborated with key teams and people who identified themselves as culture ambassadors. Together, we created tools and activities that would inspire action, and teach us how to change culture in this specific environment, because every org is different.

Here are some of the experiments we used to ignite action.

Unblocking decisions and flex support styles with a card deck

The organization wanted to become “networked”— meaning people would work more autonomously, with high accountability and clear communication between teams and their leaders (rather than linear, siloed teams). But if communication is lacking, and accountability isn’t clear, decisions in a network are made by consensus, and people don’t feel empowered to take ownership and use their ingenuity to solve problems. So we created two sets of cards to prompt better conversations between people and their managers.

One set of cards focused on unblocking decisions, by sharing questions (Is there psychological safety within the team making decisions?) and assigning clear roles that defined the level of involvement people have in making different decisions. Is someone supposed to drive a decision, or simply consult on it?

The other set of cards helped people articulate the type of support they need from their managers in a given moment, like coaching vs. problem solving—facilitating more open conversation about the type of leadership they need to thrive. These cards empowered managers to better support their teams, while empowering teams to be clear about what they need to drive good outcomes. They also proved that specific structure and language could prompt desired behaviors at scale.

One participant shared that after an initial conversation where she told her boss she was looking for a coach, he helped her strategize to draw on her strengths to achieve her goals. And when she wanted to share her “value with a broader group outside of customer-facing work and my immediate team,” she felt empowered to put that into action, which “would've never happened if it weren't for the initial coaching.”

Implementing a daily ritual to prompt collective reflection and candor

One of the most critical behaviors for creating a collaborative culture is regular, honest feedback between people. Done well, it builds trust and psychological safety among teams, leading to better performance. In this organization, teams rarely found time and space to give or gather informal feedback on the way they work. When it was positioned as a mandatory, formal task, it could feel exhausting.

Intead, we wanted to prompt small, regular conversations about collaboration. So we created a fun reflective tool based on a spin-the-wheel format:, an online generator that surfaces topical questions (like the one at the beginning of this article) to prompt candid chats. The questions run the gamut from silly to serious, and taught us the importance of making something fun if you want teams to build it into their existing routines. Questions like, “When has a new perspective helped you make a decision recently?” encouraged people to feel safe in opening up and reflecting on their behavior as a group.

Over time, reflection moments became something teams looked forward to. The questions changed the narrative so that employees could surface issues without fear of consequence, and resolve issues before they became problems. As one participant told us, “The energy was palpable in our group. It got to five minutes before the end of the session, and they still wanted to talk. Everyone wanted to do it again. It’s turning into something wonderful that we needed.”

Introducing an action journal to increase leaders’ self awareness

Many leaders recognize the importance of regular reflection and feedback sessions, but competing priorities get in the way.

To address that need, we designed a personalized action journal that fit into leaders’ daily work flow. The goal was to learn whether a tool that prompts regular self-reflection will result in an increase in leaders' self-awareness, helping them identify how they want to grow, and prompting them to seek more support.

Through this simple experiment, we were able to learn that creating dedicated space and time for reflective practices not only boosts leaders’ confidence, it models the value of continual learning and growth for others. One participant told us, “I've found it a nice and simple way to reflect on the things I've been doing, and connect that back to conversations with my own manager.”

Each of these experiments made new behaviors tangible by giving form, fun, and structure to otherwise abstract concepts. They helped people experience the potential value of new ways of working for themselves, demonstrating their function, and connecting theoretical culture change concepts with day-to-day work.

Culture change at any scale requires more than words; it requires action and application in people’s everyday experiences. Making change tangible through experiments is the quickest way to surface stories, build belief, and gather the evidence to support change at scale. Not every organization is trying to solve the same problem, and the same experiments won’t work everywhere. But for every culture problem at every company, there are tangible ways to drive change.

In a recent meeting with a new client, we asked the team, “What smart risks have you or your team taken recently?”

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

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

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

Here are five insights from our time at NYCW.

1. The power of imagination was everywhere

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

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

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

—Nazlican Goksu

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

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

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

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

—Sergio Fregoni

3. Approaching tipping points underscores the importance of fresh visions

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

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

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

—Natalia Vasquez

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

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

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

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

—Alex Gallafent

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

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

—Tim Brown

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

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

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

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

Close observation 

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

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

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

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

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

Hyper dynamic tools

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

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

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

Enhancing empathy

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

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

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

Escalating negotiations

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

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

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

Custom weirdness

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

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

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

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

The road ahead

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‍Sustainability alone won’t sell toys.

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

‍Plastic lasts longer than kids’ attention spans

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

‍Children love natural materials

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

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

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

Nixing is easier than fixing

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

From insights to action

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

Create non-plastic toys with superior functionality

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

Design toys for circular play models

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

Offer play as a service

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

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

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

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

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.