Down Arrow Button Icon

However, many designers are increasingly excited about the idea of ​​incorporating AI into design, says Cecilia Brenner, managing director of Design for Good, a global design charity.

AI is “a tool that helps us reduce friction, to allow designers to focus more on empathy and creativity,” Brenner said. luck In an interview on December 18. Technology “should serve life, not the other way around.”

Design for Good was first founded in 2022, with the goal of bringing together the world’s best designers to work towards the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Today, the alliance includes more than 2,000 designers from 30 countries, belonging to giant companies such as PepsiCo, Nestle, and Microsoft.

Brenner first joined the Design for Good alliance as a corporate designer with Philips, and later in 2024, was elected its CEO.

Since taking the helm, Brenner has made it her goal to provide more AI design tools to innovators in the alliance. In 2025, it joined two Silicon Valley AI startups, Miro and OpenStudio, as members of the alliance.

The two companies offer technical expertise and collaboration tools with AI features, Brenner said, adding that she hopes to help designers work better together across borders and time zones. “[They bring] Collaboration tools, which will help us prototype and come up with multiple concepts faster.”

By designers, for designers

Coraldo Cajanaku co-founded OpenStudio in 2023 with his sister Aji Cajanaku.

The idea for the AI ​​startup first took root in 2022. Coraldo was then chief design officer at American design firm IDEO, and his sister was completing her PhD in artificial intelligence and computer graphics at Harvard University. While studying for her degree, Aggie became involved in early experiments in generative AI, creating a model specifically for designers and letting her brother test it.

“I tried it at IDEO [on] Some projects I was working on, I was moving 100 to 1000 times faster with the work I was doing in Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. “And I said, ‘Okay, there’s something here,'” Coraldo said. luck In an interview on December 19.

The siblings then took shelter in their family home during the holidays and built the first version of OpenStudio.

The platform allows designers to create instant renders, quickly create mood boards, and visualize concepts using AI prompts. It comes integrated with OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which users can tap on to “get inspiration, brainstorm, and give feedback,” OpenStudio’s website says.

Coraldo adds that users can also switch to other AI models, including Gemini or other custom models.

When asked if he thinks AI detracts from human creativity, Coraldo said that one can still be very skilled at using AI, and that it is just a tool that speeds up implementation.

“Design is actually what happens when technology is introduced into the creative world,” he says. “And I think creativity is intrinsically rewarding, so it will always be something we as humans want to do.”

Coraldo says he is optimistic that with artificial intelligence, more designers will be born.

“I think we’ll see billions of designers in the next five to 10 years, and a lot of that will be down to technology allowing us to be more closely involved in the design process — and [easily] We go from a concept in our heads to finished objects ready for production.

Artificial intelligence for good

With the addition of the two new members to the AI-focused alliance, Brenner says her team will be better equipped for the future.

Every two years, Design for Good selects a new sustainable development goal to address. The team selected clean water and sanitation (SDG 6) for its 2022 cycle, and quality education (SDG 4) for its 2024 cycle.

In 2026, the Alliance is focusing on two Sustainable Development Goals: good health and well-being (SDG 3) and climate action (SDG 13).

“Adding members to our live network is a healthy way to help us understand that everything we create is not what it is [bring about] “It does harm, and instead has positive consequences for both people and the planet,” Brenner says.

She adds that when designing for human health and the environment, AI is particularly useful.

“AI can be used to predict human health or environmental outcomes before we implement something,” Brenner says. “Can be determined [potential] Consequences, test run and measure solutions, so we know they won’t do harm [humans or the environment]”.