Rewiring how we create

We put this operating model to work by exploring a new product category around screen-free AI companionship. Starting from an emerging signal of change, we developed two distinct propositions and brands – Rune and Sidekick – and took them far enough to understand not only what they could become, but how each might resonate with audiences and behave in the market. The result showcases our intertwined innovation process in action.

The project started with an opportunity rather than a fixed product brief. Using RADAR, our AI-enabled foresight tool, we identified ambient computing and invisible interfaces as an emerging shift: technology moving away from explicit interaction with screens and becoming more embedded in objects, environments and everyday experiences.

This opened up a rich design territory by giving us an opportunity space, and a set of questions worth exploring: If tech becomes increasingly ambient, what replaces screens as its primary interface? How does an intelligent object earn enough trust to sit physically close to us? If hardware becomes something we wear, should it disappear quietly into everyday life or become part of how we express ourselves?

We took those questions into REAL, our product design platform, where we translated strategic intent and experience principles into tangible product directions. Instead of narrowing the opportunity while it was still abstract, we could develop different hypotheses far enough to understand their implications.

Our territory materialized into two distinct concepts.
Rune explored intelligence as an object of desire, borrowing more from jewelry and finely engineered instruments than conventional electronics. Sidekick took the same opportunity in a more urban, casual and expressive direction, using a selected color palette to interact with clothing, personality and context. By making both propositions tangible, we moved from debating abstract territories to comparing two credible futures.

A seamless wearable form that brings cognitive assistance closer to the body.

The device utilizes edge computing to ensure user privacy while providing low-latency responses for professional and everyday life.

We then extended the concepts through LIVE, our content creation engine, developing audience-specific communication while Rune and Sidekick were still evolving. This allowed us to test not only what each product was, but whether either proposition could create a compelling and distinctive world around itself.

By creating market-facing content before committing to development, implementation became another form of validation: a way to test resonance, desirability and audience fit, and reduce the risk of building the wrong product.

Once our concepts became tangible, we could ask more specific questions of them. We brought both concepts into Synthetic Personas, our audience intelligence tool, to explore how different audience perspectives responded to the designs, surfacing tensions around utility, privacy, integration, and expression.

Rather than treating this as a validation gate, we used the feedback as another input into the design process. It did not tell us what to do; it gave us better evidence for what to strengthen, what to challenge and who each proposition might ultimately be for.

What this process taught us, is that designing in an age of immediacy requires us to rethink our operating model. When ideas can be materialized earlier, audiences brought into the work sooner and market expressions created before development is locked, research, design and validation no longer need to happen as separate stages. They can work as an interconnected system for learning while doing.

The innovation process of the past was designed to manage scarcity and reduce risk step-by-step. The next one needs to help us navigate an abundance of possibilities. The advantage will increasingly come from connecting insight, ideation and implementation closely enough to recognize not only what can be built, but what is worth building.