The Context

In partnership with ElementAI and LG’s Office of the CTO, our objective was twofold: design a framework that structured the ‘levels of intelligence’ that an AI enabled home appliance might exhibit, and lay out a compelling vision of the home of the future which enabled LG to push even further ahead as the leader in the smart home and intelligent appliance space.

I lead the Humanistic team in collaboration with stakeholders at both ElementAI and LG to produce a wide variety of thought provoking and speculative future scenarios based on intelligent appliances in the home.

Imagination activities like this are critical in uncovering future ‘human problems’ that might manifest themselves when our homes and appliances are imbued with AI. They also help us anticipate how the needs and desires of people might change in response to the future world around them — like with climate change, economic instability, an aging population, and the overall shifting role of the home.

Methods & Activities
  • Foresight and Vision Development
  • Scenario and Uncertainty Planning
  • Market Trend and Driver Analysis
  • Market, Environment, and Horizon Scanning
  • Product, Portfolio and Innovation Strategy
  • Strategic & Tactical Planning, Roadmapping
  • Thesis and Thematic Area Discovery
  • R&D Research Commercialization
  • Ethnography, Observation, and Street Intercepts
  • Documentation and Literature Review
  • Venture and New Business Design
  • Speculative Futures Design
Outcomes

Ultimately, we grounded these speculative future scenarios by building a maturity model which defines increasing levels of artificial intelligence, not only in appliances, but in the home in aggregate.

This model would go on to function as LG’s north star for successfully executing machine intelligence in the home, and their general AI ambitions for the coming decade.

Watch LG announce their plans and AI ambitions in regards to our work at CES 2020.
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"Imagining how machine intelligence might change the world is a complex undertaking. Humanistic helped us tremendously with this high stakes project, moving quickly to embed themselves with our team to execute and contribute unique perspectives. Matt, Shawn, and the Humanistic team brought an invaluable level of expertise and confidence to the table."
Karthik Ramakrishnan - VP, Industry Solutions, Element AI
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