Visualizing the Future with the Help of AI

When students are asked to visualize service design concepts, they usually try to tell an engaging story with video clips of users utilizing their service design. Since their version of a service design concept does not exist yet, they will try to create touchpoints such as a kiosk or product, app prototypes on mobile devices, and have a supporting cast of actors to portray service design representatives in their story. If their service design is set 15-25 years in future, the storytelling can be even more challenging because everything needs to look more futuristic to match the time period the service design concept is being proposed for. Everything including the buildings, infrastructure, stores, vehicles, people, clothing, etc. need to look like they are from the future. Trying to create futuristic looking environments, and elements for the live actors to interact with can be extremely time consuming and require a large amount of money to virtually and/or physically create, however, with new AI tools, entire rendered futuristic environments can be generated with much less time and money. The following case study describes methods and tools that 3rd year industrial design students utilized to create futuristic backdrops and environments in conjunction with actors in front of green screens to tell their service design concept stories. With new AI tools, the future of service design storytelling can be done with much less time and money, and looks to be inspiring and exciting!