As generative AI cements its place as a mission-critical tool, enterprises are grappling with both its transformative potential and the challenges of implementation. With investments in generative AI surging to $13.8 billion in 2024, businesses are embedding AI into their core strategies at an unprecedented scale. Yet, as IDC highlights, the promise of AI’s $3.7x return on every dollar spent hinges on thoughtful deployment. Chief Design Officers (CDOs) have a critical role at the forefront of this transformation, uniquely positioned to ensure AI investments deliver responsible innovation and sustainable ROI. At our recent Fortune Brainstorm Design 2024 panel, we asked several design executives from global companies to expand on how design leaders should perform in the AI era.
Aligning AI with Human-Centric Goals
Dan Makoski, former Chief Design Officer at UnitedHealth Group, emphasizes the role of design in connecting AI’s technical capabilities with human-centered outcomes. “The ‘I’ in AI stands for intelligence—a profoundly human concept,” Makoski explains. “Designers excel at bridging the gap between business goals and real human needs.” This intersection of technical feasibility, business viability, and human desirability is where CDOs thrive, guiding organizations to implement AI that is both innovative and meaningful.
Ensuring Ethical and Responsible AI Adoption
Victoria Spaulding-Burford, VP of Product Design at Salesforce, warns of the risks inherent in AI systems that operate autonomously. She highlights the agentic era of AI, where intelligent systems act independently of human operators, amplifying both benefits and risks. “It’s critical to understand data hygiene, governance, and the biases that AI models can inadvertently reinforce,” she notes. By prioritizing ethical considerations and implementing robust oversight, CDOs ensure AI systems align with organizational values and societal expectations.
Mitigating Risk Through Systems Thinking
Arin Bhowmick, Chief Design Officer at SAP, highlights the importance of systems thinking in AI implementation. “Designers must understand data lineage and quality, as well as the broader ramifications of AI,” Bhowmick explains. “Garbage in, garbage out—if AI solutions are not designed with care, they risk failing to meet user needs and breaking trust.” By embedding end-to-end thinking into the AI development process, CDOs play a pivotal role in mitigating risks and driving adoption.
Acclerating Product Disovery and Iteration
Greg Petroff, former Chief Design Officer at Cisco Secure, sees a unique opportunity for AI to revolutionize design practices themselves. Tools like retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) enable teams to quickly extract insights from organizational knowledge, accelerating product discovery and iteration. “The ability to find meaning in data and iterate faster changes the way we work,” Petroff says. “CDOs can leverage these capabilities to deliver outcomes that are not only efficient but also deeply impactful for end users.”
Building Trust and Delivering ROI
Trust is the cornerstone of successful AI adoption and ROI. As Arin Bhowmick, Chief Design Officer at SAP, emphasizes, “If you build AI that doesn’t serve a purpose, trust is broken—and it’s very, very hard to get it back.” Ensuring trust begins with aligning AI systems to clear user needs, fostering transparent communication, and delivering measurable outcomes.
Bhowmick further explains, “If you can successfully think about the use cases—what problem are we trying to solve?—then, like any other user-centered design process, AI is going to be adopted. At the end of the day, businesses care about adoption. If AI doesn’t serve a purpose, trust erodes, and rebuilding that trust is incredibly difficult.”
Chief Design Officers play a pivotal role in this process, ensuring that AI initiatives not only meet immediate objectives but also inspire long-term confidence among stakeholders. This alignment of purpose, usability, and transparency reinforces the value of AI investments while driving meaningful adoption.
Balancing Opportunity and Responsibility
“Cutting corners with AI might offer short-term wins, but it risks long-term reputational harm and a loss of trust that can be very difficult to rebuild,” says Gordon Ching, Founder & CEO of the Design Executive Council. “Design leaders must champion responsible innovation, ensuring AI solutions deliver both immediate value and sustainable impact.”
AI’s transformative potential must be approached with thoughtfulness and care. By proactively addressing risks and fostering trust, design leaders can guide their organizations toward meaningful innovation while safeguarding users and ensuring sustainable ROI.
To create lasting value in the age of AI, businesses must partner deeply with design leaders to mitigate risks and ensure sustainable, long-term results.
