Highlights
2025 Shapeshift Highlights
Navigating Our Future with AI
The 2025 Shapeshift Summit equipped participants to navigate AI’s rapidly changing landscape through real-world case studies and insights. Attendees and speakers explored how to use emerging technologies for complex challenges, all while creating business value and positive social change.
See sketch notes from the sessions below, as well as details and links to select videos and podcasts from the full program.
Videos
Summit Highlights
Global thought leaders from creative, technology, and business communities convened in Chicago to address AI’s implications for the future of design and human culture.
Designing for Trust in Urban Systems
On Day 1, ID alum Ryan Powell (MDes 2001), Director, Head of User Experience at Waymo, talks about self-driving cars and designing for trust.
Knolia.ai
Built for the 2025 Shapeshift Summit at the Institute of Design at Illinois Tech, Knolia.ai serves as a knowledge liaison between Summit attendees and the insights shared across three days exploring responsible AI. The platform transforms passive recordings into an interactive knowledge layer—allowing participants to query Summit content semantically, receive grounded responses with exact citations, and experience sessions in their own language.
Podcast Episodes
Select Shapeshift Sessions Available
Design As Season Three Episode 1
Anamitra Deb speaking to Jessica Meharry (PhD 2022) at the 2025 Shapeshift Summit.
The first episode of the new season of Design As, from our partners at Design Observer, is a roundtable conversation recorded at the Shapeshift Summit which explores a key tension in AI development: moving fast versus slowing down.
Two New Zealand design leaders on how intentionally designed AI can address challenges to democracy. Terry Williams-Willcock, Chief Customer Officer at RUSH Digital, and Chelsea Pratt, Design Lead & Strategist at Thoughtfull, discuss how they’re making civic participation more accessible with AI.
Anamitra Deb, Senior Vice President of Programs and Policy at Omidyar Network, explores how we might create a responsible future where access to AI’s benefits are shared by all humans.
ID alum Ryan Powell (MDes 2001), Director, Head of User Experience at Waymo, shares how Waymo uses design to tackle one of the world’s most pressing challenges: the 1.35 million annual traffic fatalities and 50 million injuries from vehicle crashes.
Day 1 Sketch Notes: AI & Systems
Our Professional Futures in the Age of AI with Rohit Prasad, Amazon
In a keynote and fireside chat, Rohit Prasad, Amazon SVP & Head Scientist of Artificial General Intelligence, explored critical questions about the impacts of AI and AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) on our professional futures with Founder and Former CEO of Fieldglass, Jai Shekhawat.
The discussion examined emerging short-term and long-term developments worth monitoring, and considered how for-profit companies can prioritize long-term stakeholder value beyond immediate shareholder returns.
Designing for Trust in Urban Systems with Ryan Powell, Waymo
Integrating autonomous vehicles into our cities isn’t just an engineering feat; it’s a profound design challenge centered on earning human trust within complex urban systems.
ID alum Ryan Powell, Head of UX at Waymo, shares Waymo’s human-centered blueprint for deploying autonomous driving technology responsibly. This talk explores how design builds crucial trust at every level, through a holistic approach considering individual needs, public interactions, and city-wide systems.
Beyond Silicon Valley with Ruth Kikin-Gil & Liz Danzico, Microsoft, and Ellie Kemery, SAP, moderated by Kevin Bethune, dreams.design+life
Ruth Kikin-Gil, Responsible AI Strategist at Microsoft, Liz Danzico, VP of Design for Microsoft AI and Founding Chair of the MFA in Interaction Design at SVA, and Ellie Kemery, Principal AI User Research Lead at SAP Business AI, examined how companies are realizing the potential of AI.
The panel, moderated by Kevin Bethune of dreams.design+life., explored how businesses are breaking out of Silicon Valley to consider AI’s implementation and impact around the world.
Designing AI Experiences for Global Scale with Moneta Ho & Avani Agarwal, WhatsApp
As the world’s most used messaging platform, WhatsApp presents a unique challenge: introducing AI-powered features to a global audience, many of whom are encountering this technology for the first time.
In this talk, WhatsApp’s Director, Head of Consumer Design Moneta Ho and Product Designer Avani Agarwal shared insights on designing generative AI experiences that are simple, reliable, and accessible to diverse users, from Illinois to India.
Future-Proofing an Entire City with Abdulaziz AlJaziri, Dubai Future Foundation
How do you future-proof an entire city? In this closing keynote, Abdulaziz AlJaziri, Deputy CEO & COO of the Dubai Future Foundation, presented Dubai Future Foundation’s vision and strategy—a roadmap for building the city of the future, today.
Drawing from DFF’s foresight-driven approach, he explored how Dubai is scaling AI and advanced technologies, not in isolation, but as part of a broader transformation that touches infrastructure, governance, talent, and society.
Day 2 Sketch Notes: AI & Humans
Shaping an Inclusive AI Future with Anamitra Deb, Omidyar Network
Anamitra Deb of Omidyar Network delivered a keynote followed by a fireside chat with ID Visiting Assistant Professor Jessica Meharry. The session explored how we might shape a responsible future with access to AI’s benefits for all humans and examine the challenges in promoting equity and fairness.
Ethical AI in Tech Companies with TB Bardlavens, Adobe
TB Bardlavens of Adobe examined what actions tech companies and platforms can take to become ethical and just in their AI outcomes and representations.
AI Implementation & Impact with Brian Walker, Grainger; Jeff Hsu, Far Eastern Group; and Fredrik Holmén, Eidra
Three corporate leaders—Brian Walker, SVP, Chief Product Officer of Grainger; Jeff Hsu, Chief Innovation Officer at Far Eastern Group; and Fredrik Holmén, Founding Partner & AI Lead of Eidra—explored how organizations are using AI in their workflows to deliver impact and measure success.
Moderated by Kelly Franznick, Blink UX.
Emerging Roles in the Age of AI with Jon Friedman, Microsoft, and Amy Guterman, Salesforce
Jon Friedman, Corporate Vice President of Design and Research for Microsoft 365, and Amy Guterman, Senior Director of Innovation, Philanthropy at Salesforce, joined a conversation with ID students and Signals co-chairs Daniela Velez and Mariana Pinet.
Their discussion explored emerging professional roles in the age of AI and how design practice will evolve as new technologies move into our workplaces.
Global Salons
Salons Recap
In 2024, the Institute of Design collaborated with global partners to host locally-organized salons in Auckland, New Zealand; Tokyo, Japan; Pune, India; and New York City. Each salon discussed the possibilities of using AI for a distinct local concern focused on networks, systems, and the human experience. The lessons from these salons served as a starting point for the conversations at the 2025 Shapeshift Summit.
Those who participated in Shapeshift Salons around the world in 2024 reported on their findings at the Global Summit in 2025.