Bringing intentionality to our relationship with AI
“Changes today are no longer happening in isolation—they are connected, interconnected, and occurring simultaneously, just as the forces of globalization, politicization, consumption, and commoditization are captivating the attention of business leaders across all sectors of the economy.”
- Joern, and Bishop. Sept. 2020
AI will continue to dominate headlines and agendas, but it is not a catch-all solution to the challenges facing business and society. Instead, it serves as a powerful tool to advance human capabilities and improve quality of life. Our theme, Intelligence Renaissance, is intentionally crafted to ensure that AI does not dictate the agenda. Rather, the focus is on understanding intelligence—both human and artificial—and exploring the evolving relationships between them, from human-to-AI interactions to the emergence of AI-to-AI dynamics.
This raises fundamental questions: What is our new relationship with intelligence, and how can we better understand its evolving forms? How might we craft interactions that reflect human values while unlocking the transformative potential of AI? What standards will govern quality, ethics, and trust in this new era?
As AI increasingly blurs the line between the real and artificial, we must also ask: What boundaries and limitations do we want to proactively impose to ensure AI aligns with the needs of humanity? How much personification do we intentionally want to give to AI? These questions are at the heart of The Intelligence Renaissance, driving us to rethink the intersections of design, business, and society in an era defined by rapid technological progress.
AI is changing how we relate, create, and interact with technology
“AI is reshaping not just design but how people engage with technology. This is unlocking new interaction models,” Bethany Fenton explains. These new models demand that designers move beyond traditional frameworks to consider how AI transforms relationships between users and AI systems.
As Jennifer Darmour puts it, “You’re not just designing a product anymore; you’re shaping a new character or actor that collaborates with the user and other agents.” This shift challenges business, technology, and design leaders to think holistically about how AI becomes a collaborative force in shaping experiences, not just a functional tool.
As the value of knowledge work is evolving, the role of design and its workforce will need to shift. Will organizations deepen their investment in design, or will it be sidelined in favor of automated solutions? The answer lies in the ability of design leaders to position their contributions as strategic drivers of business success and human outcomes. 2025 marks a pivotal moment for the design field—a year where demonstrating design’s value in alignment with the shifting priorities of businesses and society is essential to securing its future relevance.
However, as Suzanne Pellican notes, “The imagination of what AI technology can actually do right now far outpaces reality. Some of the most basic elements of great experiences are being assumed.” This highlights a critical responsibility for businesses to ground their work in the fundamentals of human-centric design to ensure AI investments produce meaningful customer value.
The Intelligence Renaissance represents an opportunity to evolve the role of design in this rapidly evolving landscape. By thoughtfully leveraging AI while maintaining a focus on human outcomes, leaders can ensure that business investments remain aligned to creating real value.
At the Design Executive Council (DXC), we are addressing these challenges head-on through our co-creative research model. This initiative draws inspiration from the scientific and artistic breakthroughs of the Italian Renaissance, a period that fostered unprecedented progress while introducing new risks and uncertainties. Today, we find ourselves in a similar moment, where extraordinary advancements in artificial intelligence and interconnected systems are redefining industries, organizations, and society.
DXC research pillars:
To guide businesses and design leaders through this period, DXC has developed a collaborative approach for research and curation, embracing diverse perspectives shaping business priorities and deepen our understanding of the factors influencing design leadership evolution.
Our work centers on three interconnected research pillars:
Strategy
Explore the mega forces shaping CEO and Board priorities and their implications for business strategy. Gain insights from the leading experts, board members, and corporate executives to align design leadership with the evolving needs of top-level decision-makers.
Practices
Adapt the mindset, frameworks, and approaches of design and business leaders to succeed in AI-enabled businesses. Drive actionable outcomes that enhance the credibility, integration, and measurable impact of design teams on business performance and key metrics.
Culture
Reimagine the future of work and collaboration in a rapidly evolving corporate landscape. Explore how design and business leaders are shaping company culture, fostering team cohesion, and uplifting morale amidst the challenges of layoffs and the transformative pressures of AI advancements.
These pillars will influence how DXC curates research, collaborates with speakers, and engages with experts, ensuring that our programs remain relevant, actionable, and impactful.
The journey ahead will not only redefine design’s role in the corporate world but also reinforce its enhanced relevance as an essential driver of innovation, strategy, and culture in a dynamic and uncertain world.
Closing the research gap to prepare businesses and design organizations
Through 2025, DXC members will collaborate through a series of virtual and in-person roundtables to create actionable resources that strengthen design leadership. These efforts will focus on key development areas identified at our 2024 Annual Summit to ensure design leaders remain current.
AI for design | Q1
Define the foundational principles and competencies that will drive AI design for the next 3–7 years. Provide clear guidance that improves the continued impact, adaptability and readiness of design organizations for the AI era.
View the preliminary development areas from design executives.
Metrics | Q2
Establish education and frameworks that increase the visible and measurable impact of design on strategic business outcomes. Equip design executives with CFO-grade metrics that prove the business case of design.
Craft evolution | Q3
Establish standards for craft evolution in the age of AI—deeply understanding how various design disciplines will need to evolve, and how to raise the bar for design excellence, quality management, and business impact at scale.
Design leadership playbook | Q4
Craft a definitive design leadership playbook that amplifies influence and drives measurable impact. This playbook delves into proven case studies, covering the full lifecycle of the role—from establishing, scaling, to deeply integrating commercially durable design organization across the enterprise.
Board directorship + org design benchmarking | 2025 throughout
Throughout the year, we will advance two key strategic initiatives: benchmarking data for design organizations and board directorship programming for senior executives. These two initiatives are designed to strengthen the industry-level capabilities of corporate design leaders and organizations. These resources will be developed and shared as they become available.
Looking forward: creating materials to guide evolution
Looking forward, DXC will be publishing these materials throughout 2025, including strategic insights, artifacts, and frameworks, for broader public access. This initiative will provide design leaders and businesses with helpful resources to elevate their strategic design leadership practices, ensuring broader access to the tools and knowledge needed to navigate the future of design and business transformation.
This February, our Council is hosting a series of AI for Design events for members, including three in-person roundtables in Seattle, San Francisco and New York to convene global design executives to unpack these challenges and co-create new solutions. DXC Research papers and data insights will be made available through the year to provide industry education.
For Design Executives interested to participate in our events, request an invitation by exploring DXC membership.
