AI in Augmentation, Acceleration, and the Next Innovation Curve
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Chris Wlezien
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When we talk about the rise of AI in product design, I like to think of it less as a checklist of right or wrong approaches and more as a framework. The transformations we’re witnessing today aren’t entirely new—disruptive technologies have been shaping the design landscape for decades. But of all the innovations I’ve encountered in my career, AI is easily the most disruptive.
Understanding where we are today, it helps to trace the evolution of product design over the past 30 years. While the roots go deeper, modern product design came of age with companies like Apple. Steve Jobs, Jony Ive, and others helped shift design from functional to emotional—from utilitarian to desirable—anchored in deep consumer insight. Technology continued to evolve, but the fundamental process remained focused on making things that people love and that solve real, often unmet, needs.
The most significant prior inflection point was the dot-com era, which ushered in a transition from purely physical products to interconnected physical-digital experiences. Even then, the role of designers remained focused on translating consumer desires into meaningful physical forms.
Today’s AI tools remind me of the early days of CAD—computer-aided drafting. When CAD was introduced, people worried it would replace drafters and engineers. In reality, it became a powerful augmentation tool. It allowed us to move away from drawing boards and toward spending more time on creative, high-value work. 3D printing followed a similar arc—cutting what used to take days or weeks into hours. AI fits the same trajectory: in the hands of experts, it accelerates discovery without replacing the human core of innovation. That’s the real shift I see today — AI isn’t changing the ‘why’ behind great design, but it’s transforming the ‘how’ in ways that ripple through every phase of development.
"The transformations we’re witnessing today aren’t entirely new—disruptive technologies have been shaping the design landscape for decades. But of all the innovations I’ve encountered in my career, AI is easily the most disruptive."
What excites me most about AI isn't just speed, though that's a massive part. It’s the quality of the speed. AI lets us simulate thousands of variations, test more concepts, and get better answers faster.
In the past, we’d simulate two designs because that’s all we had time for. Now, we can explore hundreds. It’s not just about doing the same work faster—it’s about doing a better job within the same window of time.
There’s a strategic shift happening. Some organizations are shrinking timelines. But the most insightful teams are maintaining their timelines and using AI to explore more, iterate deeper, and raise the bar. However, acceleration without discipline is dangerous—this newfound speed always comes with trade-offs.
Every project has constraints—months or years—and there’s pressure to cut corners. AI can reduce friction points, particularly in concept generation or research. But it doesn’t give you speed for free across the board. It’s critical to recognize where quality can be preserved and where it can’t.
And while those risks are real, most organizations aren’t even at the point of hitting them yet. We’re still in what I’d call ‘AI 1.0’ in the product development world. Most teams I encounter are just beginning to explore the tools. Very few—maybe less than 5%—are using AI at a truly proficient level. We’re not yet at maturity. Adoption is early, fragmented, and in many cases, still experimental.
But that’s precisely where the opportunity lies.
One of the best ways to drive adoption is to allow people to explore. Don’t wait for enterprise-wide implementation plans. Let individuals or small teams pilot AI on a single part or phase of a project. If it adds value—faster timelines, better insights, or cost savings—expand and build on it. You don’t need a massive system migration like switching from Oracle to SAP. You need a culture of experimentation and structured learning to find the best opportunities for AI in your unique business.
To that end, I advocate for making everyone an AI champion. Create safe sandboxes where team members can test tools without fear of failure or data exposure. Have experts review all outputs. Trust doesn’t come from AI itself—it comes from building processes where human validation is part of the loop. AI should generate the options; experts should make the calls.
"Every project has constraints—months or years—and there’s pressure to cut corners. AI can reduce friction points, particularly in concept generation or research. But it doesn’t give you speed for free across the board. It’s critical to recognize where quality can be preserved and where it can’t."
AI also has the potential to democratize product design. We ran an exercise developing a new robotic concept in which even our sales and marketing teams used image generators to express their ideas. The results were remarkable—not because the images were production-ready, but because we all suddenly spoke the same visual language. It bridged the gap between creative and technical. That kind of cross-functional input wouldn’t be possible without tools like this.
And yet, we need to be clear-eyed about limitations.
AI is fundamentally retrospective. It excels at aggregating and remixing everything humans have already discovered–but it doesn’t truly imagine. It won’t dream up the next revolutionary idea out of thin air. That’s still a uniquely human skill. I see AI as an “ambassador to the past”—an expert at pattern recognition and synthesis, but not a creator of the next frontier.
That’s why I think the future of AI in product development will arrive gradually, over the next 5 to 10 years. It will integrate more deeply into workflows, automate more of the mundane, and open up new efficiencies. But it won’t eliminate the need for human imagination, intuition, or judgment.
I wholeheartedly support that hardware is essential—maybe even more essential than we’ve appreciated. For all the talk of software eating the world, hardware is where we live. It’s how we interact with the digital. Whether it's your phone, car, or VR headset, software has no place to live without a physical form. It’s the same reason that fusion reactor concept still excites me — because whether it’s a world-changing energy system or the phone in your pocket, every breakthrough ultimately lives in a physical form.
Personally, I find enormous satisfaction in working on purely mechanical, digital-free products. Something is enduring and meaningful about designing things people can touch, hold, and love. As AI and software continue to evolve, my hope is that hardware gets its due recognition, not just as a platform, but as the soul of product experience. If AI is the accelerant, hardware is the vessel. One without the other can only go so far. Together, they can turn what’s possible today into what’s real tomorrow.
Chris Wlezien
External advisor at McKinsey
