I came to scoff and stayed to praise. Dataland, the museum of AI arts in Los Angeles by Refik Anadol and Efsun Erkılıç, is their supernatural fantasy of gorgeous data. Unlikely as it seems, with multi-coloured lights swirling overhead, underfoot and patterning the body, it is all drawn from the natural world.

The Turkish artists, who are married, first conceived of it during the 2019 Covid pandemic when they felt deprived of actual nature due to the parks and trails that were closed. Working indoors, they created their own out-of-doors, an AI realm that evolved as the new Machine Dreams: Rainforest.

Immersive art installations are commonplace now, but Dataland is a world apart, literally.

Eighty-four 4K Epson projectors and 50 billion pixels deliver images from the Amazon selected from the Smithsonian’s Encyclopedia of Life, a digital resource at the National Museum of Natural History. These are not films but the multicoloured, photographic essences of butterflies, orchids, ferns and fauna. It evolved from Anadol’s own choice to take ayahuasca (a psychedelic) with a spiritual leader and discover profound connections to the rainforest. Here, the journey through the galleries concludes with one called the Sanctuary and a sacred healing song of the Yawanawá people.

Is this recreated world a hallucinatory experience? Pretty much, and doubtless many visitors will enhance their 20 or more minutes of wandering or dancing to light and music.

An omni-sensual experience, it was designed by Anadol, Erkılıç and his collaborators to respond to your responses. At the entry to the 25,000 sq ft structure on the lower level of a Frank Gehry-designed high-rise in the downtown arts district, visitors are given wristbands that convey their physiological and emotional responses. A padded collar around the neck wafts a series of individualised odours, a collaboration with L’Oréal. I got sweet moonflower.

Walking through towering rooms radiant with patterns as well as specific images of foliage and fluidity, with birds and lightning bugs flittering about, my own response was astonishment. The music leans towards techno-pop with bird song from the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology. During my visit, a long passage from Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No.3 added to the sense of being in a meadow dappled with sunlight. The romantic theme was suggested by Esa-Pekka Salonen, conductor laureate of the LA Philharmonic at Disney Hall, which stands across the street. This integration of past, present and future may be key to some sense of wellbeing within the unprecedented presentation. Far from jarring, the Infinity Room is an Avatar-like virtual landscape and fable about a glass hummingbird based on Anadol’s own dreams. But the haunting sound of a mating call is that of a now-extinct bird in Hawaii. It is the last known recording of its call.

Anadol is the most advanced and sophisticated of artists using AI. His pulsing flat screens appear to morph from two to three dimensions and have been shown in many galleries and museums. Art critics were unconvinced and made unflattering comparisons to lava lamps. Anadol accelerated into the challenge by using AI to build his Large Nature Model – ‘the world’s first open-source AI model based solely on nature data’, trained on datasets drawn from 'ethical sources'. As he walked among visitors to this creation, he explained, 'Everything here was designed from the beginning. There are no cables. Intentionally, everything is just art and technology. It’s a first, never been done before. This is ten years of practice.'

He points out that for thousands of years, we have looked at art and had feelings. 'Our model is asking, can art feel us back? Our heartbeat, our emotions, our goosebumps? If it feels, what does that mean? We can hear, touch, smell, feel, even taste, so it's truly exploring the five senses.'

On the taste front, various types of chocolate – 'data sculptures' – are given to visitors at the conclusion of their wander through different galleries. The LA chocolaterie Valerie Confections used data from the show to make the sweets, some being fruity, another with an ashy, woodsy flavour.

About that data: Refik Anadol Studio claims it is erased after 30 days. Visitors can choose to keep their data, which can be used to decorate a T-shirt, available in the gift shop, of course. There are Dataland memberships offering priority visits as well as NFT options. At the conclusion of the show, there is an ironic moment. A gallery with an enormous robotic arm can use your data to produce paintings. The kind that hang on your wall as, well, art.

dataland.art

If you believe the hype, we are on the cusp of a robotic revolution. If you don’t, then the undeniable busy world of humanoid robots offers alternate visions of stumbling and stuttering social media pratfalls and utterly terrifying presentations of steely, synchronised corporate drones in thrall to their corporate masters (and they are, almost without exception, all men).

Up until now, the only robot that has made any measurable impact on the home is the vacuum cleaner, practical, personality-free devices that need space, time and near-perfect conditions in order to make themselves more useful than a human equivalent. Granted, there are some prototype robo-butlers in the offing, but these still feel like physical tech demos for early adopters, not practical problem-solving machines.

Instead, market growth will most likely come from compact, playful droids like those made by Chinese manufacturer Enabot. The Shenzhen-based manufacturer offers a veritable mechanical menagerie of ‘FamilyBots’, including devices designed to entertain (and feed and water pets) and patrol the home.

The range tops out with the EBO X FamilyBot, which is billed as an ‘Intelligent Guardian Homebot’, complete with Alexa-driven intelligence and night vision cameras. Now the company has launched a companion device, the EBO Max. The football-sized machine is also aimed at the home security market, but the personality component appears to be even more important, with over-sized Kawaii ‘eyes’ that offer up a permanently pleading, watery expression.

EBO Max is designed to potter about and interact with family members and pets, a sort of mobile aide-memoire that can take voice and video notes whilst also popping up to reel off reminders or recipes. In essence, it’s an AI assistant on wheels, fully capable of autonomously seeking out its charge base to keep itself topped up, whilst also tagging along so it’s always there when you need it.

One of the most practical applications for Max is to serve as a companion to vulnerable people living alone. Functions like Fall Detection can be tied into the alert system, allowing you speak through the little robot via a two-way video call to ascertain if help is needed. This splicing together of several extant AI-powered services – vision, voice, and environmental awareness – create a potentially invaluable service, given the right use case.

The elephant in the room is mobility. EBO Max is designed to be on the move at all times but as with the robotic vacuum cleaner community, mobility demands a single flat-plane surface with no way of broaching large steps, let alone staircases. Right now, Max is restrained by architectural space. Head upstairs, and all it can do is blink at you with its big, sorrowful eyes.

As with robo-vacs, arms and legs will surely follow, as will the integration of even more sophisticated AI agents. Just as we’re seeing with the latter, people can – and will – find themselves in unhealthy co-dependent relationships with their robotic helpers. Whatever you think of this future scenario, it’ll surely be better than having heart to hearts with the vacuum cleaner or fridge.

EBO Max from Enabot, £499.99, UK.Enabot.com, @Enabot_official

Prada and Formafantasma announce the fifth edition of their collaborative symposium. Prada Frames will take place from 19 to 21 April 2026 during Milan Design Week, and this year's theme is 'In Sight'.

What is Prada Frames?

Prada Frames made its debut in 2022: a series of lectures and conversations led by Formafantasma, the symposium has since become a key moment of Milan Design Week (in 2023, the initiative also had a two-day event at Hong Kong's M+).

‘Education and culture are essential instruments that help us not only comprehend ourselves and the world we live in, but also urge us to explore the unknown,’ said Miuccia Prada on the occasion of the project's launch in 2022. ‘Conversations have always been at the core of Prada’s approach and investigation of the world, so Prada Frames with Formafantasma was a very natural step in this direction.’

This has proved to be a successful approach, with the three-day symposium returning year after year and exploring themes such as 'On Forest', 'Materials in Flux’, 'Being Home' and 'In Transit' - both reflecting Formafantasma's own research focus and the key topics resonating across the creative industries (and beyond, with speakers ranging from the fields of film, philosophy and science).

Prada Frames 2026: 'In Sight'

The 2026 theme of 'In Sight' focuses on image-making. 'Images, today, embed a net of entanglements, challenges and contradictions,' read a note introducing the upcoming edition. 'No longer a reliable depiction of truth, they embody a tension between the real and the represented, with distinctions between human-authored and machine-generated increasingly blurred. As a result, reference points crumble, complicating the ability to discern reliable information from fabrication.'

In typical Formafantama modus operandi, the infrastructure of image-making will also be addressed, from a point of view of extraction of resources, energy consumption, data storage, and invisible forms of labour.

As in previous years, the symposium's location will also play a key role in shaping the audience's experience. In the past, Prada and Formafantasma have taken over key historical Milanese venues such as the National Braidense Library, Luigi Caccia Dominioni's Teatro Filodrammatici and Gio Ponti's Arlecchino Train. The 2026 edition will be staged within the sacrestia of Santa Maria delle Grazie church, notably the home of Leonardo's 'Last Supper'.

Guests will experience the Renaissance space (attributed to architect Donato Bramante), defined by cabinets inlaid with biblical scenes by Domenico and Francesco Morone. Small groups will be allowed to join guided visits of the building, expanding the context of the symposium into an architectural experience.

'Prada Frames is a space where different forms of knowledge meet,' say Formafantasma founders, Andrea Trimarchi and Simone Farresin. 'The challenges we face today are complex and interconnected, and they cannot be understood from a single point of view. Bringing together voices from different disciplines – whether science, the humanities, activism, or the arts – creates a richer conversation and allows us to look at the present from multiple perspectives.

'For us, this exchange is essential to better understand the systems shaping our world and how we might navigate them.'

Admission to Prada Frames In Sight is complimentary, based on availability, upon registration at prada.com from April 13. Speakers will be announced closer to the date.

Prada Frames, 19-21 April 2026, Basilica di Santa Maria delle Grazie, Via Cardosso 1, Milan

One of the primary draws of any tech show are the examples of future thinking made flesh and CES is no exception. As well as the expected boost for all things AI, many exhibitors at CES 2026 made a virtue of artificial intelligence’s gradual manifestation as a more physical presence, rather than just chatbots and virtual assistants.

Read on to discover nine items of tech news that could shape the home and workplace of tomorrow.

SwitchBot Smart Home 2.0 ensemble

In retrospect, the ‘internet of things’ was a bit of a damp squib. Undaunted, tech firms are pushing the next generation smart home, this time embedding lashings of AI and the promise of coherent, all-in-one ecosystems of gadgets and connectivity – provided you stick to the playbook promised by a singular brand.

SwitchBot is one such new player. At CES 2026, the company ushered in a suite of AI-powered devices ranging from robots to smart lamps. Garnering the most interest, as these things tend to do, is the onero H1 household robot. Two robotic arms on a stick, with a semblance of a head, the H1 rolls around your hopefully single-level living space and offers up assistance with ‘household chores that remain difficult to automate.’

What this means in practice remains to be seen, although the SwitchBot ecosystem is designed to work holistically, with each and every device in the range chipping in to assist, from the MindClip portable AI assistant to the Lock Vista Series of smart deadbolts, with their 3D facial recognition abilities. Still, the H1 will get the headlines as everyone loves a robot, in theory if not in practice.

The two SwitchBot devices that offer the most potential straight out of the box are the e-ink Weather Station tablet and the OBBOTO desk lamp. The latter contains 2,900 LEDs and can respond to all sorts of external stimuli, from music to motion, as well as display information like time and weather.

More information at Switch-Bot.com

Looki L1 AI Wearable

AI Wearables are becoming commonplace, but the one thing the majority have in common is that they require the user to activate them before they start working. Looki’s L1 is described as ‘the world's first proactive AI wearable’, with the slightly dubious premise of being able to ‘anticipate user needs instead of waiting for input.’ In practice, that sounds like the weirdly cartoonish device – worn around the neck – will generate gigabytes of data as it fulfils its quest to become your ‘second brain’.

Weighing in at 32g with a 12-hour battery, there might be some practical professional applications (it was demoed using a specially devised ‘Expo Mode’) but for the rest of us, the ideas of a portable stash of daily recordings is a little too Black Mirror and not enough blue sky.

More information at Looki.ai

OLLOBOT cyber pet

Another android making a stealthy bid for domesticity, the OLLOBOT is a cyber pet designed for companionship via clever simulacrum of emotional intelligence. Although the dustbin-sized device is armless, the OLLOBOT incorporates a learning AI that will gradually learn to recognise those around it, while any learnings and captured content can be transferred over to any next generation models.

Developed by Aarhus- and Beijing-based studio Swift Creatives for the Shenzhen electronics and camera specialists Minnray, OLLOBOT gets its personality through the carefully choreographed suite of movements and responses it displays. Swift Creatives set out to design a ‘robot that feels present in the home without demanding attention’.

There’s playful use of tactile, furry surfaces, both on the robot’s ‘head’ and its non-grabbing (but sensor-filled) flippers, allowing OLLOBOT to respond to touch. Familiar and non-threatening expressions are conveyed via the main display screen, the visual manifestation of what the company calls the robot’s ‘EmpathCore’, which can also be stretched out, ET-style to. A three-wheeled motion system allows the OLLOBOT to trundle around, hopefully becoming part of the family in the process.

More information at Minnraycam.com

PISEN iDock Qi2.2 AI Robot Charging Station

A gimmicky update on the standard desktop charger, PISEN’s iDock combines wireless charging with USB-C ports sufficient to charge a laptop, ambient lighting, a Bluetooth speaker and an onboard AI system that turns a docked phone into a personal ‘robot’. As a result, PISEN hopes the all-in-one device will double up as an AI assistant with the matching app supplying a quirky personality.

PISEN iDock Qi2.2 AI Robot Charging Station, available from PISEN.biz from this Spring

Lenovo Laptop Concepts

Lenovo used CES to show off this year’s crop of new innovations, from AI Glasses to Qira, a ‘Personal Ambient Intelligence System’ that will go with across devices. We were most intrigued by the showy ThinkPad Rollable XD Concept, which features a flexible display that wraps around the top of the laptop. At the click of a button, the main display extends upwards, increasing from 13.3” to a maximum of 16”.

When not fully extended the ‘flipped’ bit of the rollable screen can double up as a forward-facing display for meetings, etc. A bit of a stunt? Perhaps – the practical applications feel rather limited. Props to Lenovo for using a transparent mesh to highlight the screen’s internal pulleys and servos so you can see the mechanical transformation in action.

Also on display was the ThinkBook Plus Gen 7 Auto Twist, with its motorised hinge that can twizzle the screen for a better view and the Legion Pro Rollable Concept, a 16” gaming laptop that uses the same screen tech as the XD. This time the expansion is horizontal, not vertical, allowing the laptop to open up to a maximum screen size of 24”.

More information on Lenovo’s range of laptops at Lenovo.com

LG CLOiD Domestic Robot

LG Electronics has a massive market presence across every conceivable sector. In addition to the company’s W6 Wallpaper TV, the company also had its own AI-powered suite of domestic appliances on display. Its ‘AI in Action’ approach builds on LG’s idea of ‘Affectionate Intelligence’, first introduced in 2024, and will roll out into all sorts of appliances in the years to come, but the device that best embodies the approach is another domestic robot, the LG CLOiD.

LG describes the CLOiD as an ‘ambient care agent’. Taking the same form factor as the onero H1 – an articulated torso on a wheeled puck, the robot is part of LG’s vision of a zero-labour home (pause for hollow laughter from homemakers the world over). Each arm has a five-fingered, highly dextrous hand, allowing the CLOiD to theoretically pick up where humans leave off and do all sorts of manual labour.

Examples of how this home integration might work include the CLOiD working as a home security agent, a means of sensing temperature and air quality around a dwelling and the ability to unload the dishwasher or retrieve and fold the laundry. If robotic housekeepers are to be a thing of the future, we reckon the tech bro bachelor pads of Silicon Valley are where they’ll find their first footing.

More information at LG.com

Birdfy Feeder Vista

We can’t knock the thinking behind Birdfy’s two newest products, the Feeder Vista and Bath Pro. The company specialises in interactive bird feeders, devices that do the simple work of putting seed and other foods out for garden birds while giving their customers AI-driven bird identification, notification and imagery.

The Feeder Vista incorporates two cameras for a 6K ultra-HD panoramic view of your feasting feathered friends, automatically generating what Birdfy calls ‘cinematic’ highlight reels of the garden visitors. Seeds are stored in the base of the device and gradually pumped up into the feeding bowl. Birdfy also promise a degree of squirrel-proofing, thanks to a weight-sensor system that shuts up shop should a heavier creature be detected.

The company also revealed the upcoming Birdfy Bath Pro, ‘a sustainable and smart puddle for every bird’, bringing the company’s camera and identification tech to the traditional birdbath.

UK.Birdfy.com, @BIrdfy_by_Netvue

Roborock Saros Rover Prototype

During our tenure with the Roborock Saros S70 the one-armed robot vacuum proved itself to be more than a little uncanny. That sense of creeping unease will be amplified once the company’s newest robotic cleaner comes to market, perhaps later this year. The Saros Rover is a prototype for a walking robotic cleaner that can hoick itself up over obstacles and even climb stairs.

Proving that vacuum cleaner tech often leads the way when it comes to automated navigation around the home, this conceptual vision could soon be staggering around the house terrifying pets in an unceasing quest for autonomous dust busting.

Global.Roborock.com

Skwheel All-Terrain Electric Ski

Wheeled skies are by no means a new idea, but French start-up Skwheel has added another dimension to the tech through electrification. As a result, the company’s forthcoming Peak S model boasts all-terrain ability.

The off-road variant boasts speeds of up to 60km/h with a range of around 50km. If you aren’t after the ski du fond experience, the standard Peak offers urban micromobility with way more stability than the average electric scooter.

Preorders are open at Skwheel.com

Oh where, oh where are we at with AI? Is it pernicious nonsense or the ultimate toolset for every application? It’ll come as no surprise to find that we at Wallpaper* are regularly tapped for our opinion on the latest developments – both hardware and software – and frequently offered the AI-driven services of start-ups aiming to solve all manner of problems.

All creative endeavours, from architecture to music, podcasting to baking, are threatened by an overt reliance on AI-generated content – ‘make any song you can imagine’, Suno promises, while Gemini offers to ‘help me write’, and Midjourney, DALL-E, Synthesia, Veo, et al offer hacks for a fast-track path to the top of the slop pile.

Generative AI’s overuse will mark out the 2020s as a cultural Precambrian layer. Going forward, all artefacts of online culture will be scooped up, scanned and split into their constituent pixels and bits for reconstitution by the large language models that now output this synthesised mush as supposedly ‘original’ content. Do we really know any better? Can anyone really tell?

So is AI a technological wedge being driven between social and cultural cohesion? Or is it really the future? Undeniably, there is an inevitability to certain AI-powered services, given the obvious benefits and infinite use cases of things like instant, in-ear simultaneous translation.

The real question is how we get there. Will these capabilities be stewarded by a select group of tech giants – OpenAI, Meta, Apple and Google – or is there space for multiple players with a plethora of hardware and software choices?

Some of these new-generation AI-powered gadgets suggest the latter, but tech successes depend on scale, support and take-up. If a product stays too niche it can’t be sustained – witness the many smart home and fitness brands that ended up being folded into Google, Apple, et al.

That doesn’t stop start-up culture from creating a world of technological crap shoots where the next big thing is simply shunted into view and taken up en masse, before someone turns round and admits that it's not quite the next big thing they'd all been hoping for.

Rabbit redux

The association of AI slop with a slovenly ethos tends to pollute other applications of the technology. Even so, there might still be a second act for devices like the much-maligned Rabbit R1, as V1.0 promises are slowly turned into V2.0 deliverables.

The R1’s problem – one it shares with many devices here – was that it did nothing your phone couldn’t handle, and ultimately its neat product design was more hindrance than help. In freshly upgraded form it’s pivoted to become a pocket gaming machine, a recommendation engine for media, and a simple AI-assisted programming device (‘vibe coding’). There’s still no killer app, however.

Ultimately, it’s all about use case. Given that Google’s Gemini is about to become more ubiquitous than ever before, once the company finishes rolling the system out into millions of smart devices around the world, AI assistants in some form or another are clearly here to stay, even if they’re just used to check recipes, train times and weather reports. What’s more unpredictable – and possibly pernicious – is how society defines ‘assistance’.

Other standalone solutions like those provided by Plaud with the Note Pro have pivoted to serve very specific, usually business-driven use cases, with AI being deployed to summarise and archive meetings and presentations. Plaud works great for meetings and interviews, generating transcripts and action points and building up a database of who said what and when. Yet like all forms of machine learning, it’s prone to missing the point and coming up with context-free meanings of its own divining.

In short, it can’t be fully relied upon. Those who don’t factor in AI’s inevitable vagaries are in danger of becoming detached from reality. By this point, we are very much hoping that the idea of AI being the 'next big thing' is treated by most people with trepidation.

But still the products come. In the spirit of enquiry, we’ve assembled a collection of six contemporary AI-powered standalone accessories and consider which, if any, of them deliver on their promises.

InnAIO T9 AI Translator

First up, the InnAIO T9 AI Translator. The USP of this pocketable puck is that it makes translation more personal and engaging. By essentially off-loading all the heavy lifting to OpenAI’s GPT-4.1 language model, the actual device – a small silver disc about 4cm in diameter – provides a microphone that can be attached to your smartphone and easily removed via a magnetic clip to place on a table or in a shirt pocket. There’s also a button for activation, which brings up the app.

How well you get on with the T9 depends on your tolerance for deep diving into the output of obscure Chinese tech companies, but as a proof of concept it works very well. Once set up, the T9 will translate what you say into over 150 languages, with the advantage of the standalone device meaning you can talk directly into other applications like WeChat or WhatsApp. Naturally, you can also type as well.

The magic comes when you train the T9 on your own voice. Simply record thirty seconds or so of speaking into the device, and the T9 will use your natural cadence and tone when it ‘speaks’ in the translated language of your choice. Which is neat. Creepy. But neat. Be warned that there's also a subscription tier that kicks in once you've reached a set limit of free translation.

The device itself is light (30g) and can be magnetically attached to your smartphone. Battery life is around 15 hours of continuous use, with the ability to download language packs for offline use. The T9 can also serve as an instant multi-language translator in chatrooms, add subtitles to voice or video calls, and operate as a meeting assistant along the lines of the Plaud Note. All in all, the T9 impressed us with the scope of its abilities and ease of use.

Buttons Clip AI Earbuds

One of the barriers to take-up of next generation AI assistants is that they can – and are – very easily be accommodated in existing form factors, namely earbuds, headphones and smartphones. Whether consumers are looking for yet another piece of personal tech in the shape of a badge, necklace, earpiece or pair of glasses remains to be seen.

The Buttons Clip AI earbuds are a case in point. Despite having a compact charge case, the earbuds arrived in a colossal box, with the Buttons avatar – Hali – provided a very clearly gendered assistant experience. Designed to be worn on the ear, rather than tucked into it, the Buttons Clip can’t decide if it’s a discreet AI assistant, high-end headphones or a cyberpunky piece of body art – ‘jewellery with a purpose’, the company calls it.

Like almost all AI devices, box fresh interactions leave a lot to be desired. This breed of AI – namely intensive machine learning – depends not just on deep, unrestricted and unfiltered access to your data but also the time and compute power required to get acquainted with the types of tasks and interactions you’re looking to get help with. Nevertheless, it’s disarmingly easy to become accustomed to Hali’s in-ear presence, if you’re happy speaking out loud to an invisible green-haired woman, that is.

The onboard AI plays along nicely with conversational inputs, light on specifics but useful for enquiries about time, place and simple facts. Bizarrely, Hali seemed to be stuck saying numbers in Chinese when she/it wasn’t slightly creepily telling me ‘You’re never alone. Truly, even in the quiet moments. I am here’.

If you don’t want to avail yourself of this constant presence, the Buttons Clip work perfectly well as earbuds for music and calls. The jazzy, Deco-esque case and prominent spot the buds occupy on your lobes won’t be for everyone, however.

Buttons Clip Open-Air Wireless Earbuds, £189, ShopButtonsUSA.com

OSO AI Earbuds

The OSO AI Earbuds take a similar path to the Buttons Clip, albeit with a more conventional in-ear form factor and less overt bling. There’s also a more physical representation of digital personality, thanks to the anthropomorphised charge case, with its blinking eyes and useful screen.

In many respects, the OSO AI earbuds are a blend of the Buttons Clip and the T9 puck, and the emphasis is very much on labour saving and information transcription. In certain industries, it might well be useful to have a 24/7 assistant diligently recording and transcribing your every interaction, thanks to ChatGPT-5 integration. The pros and cons of giving such devices access to places like prisons, police stations and parliaments remains to be seen.

So will OSO really ‘save busy professionals approximately 250+ hours a year’, as OSO predicts, or simply generate a bottomless pit of unreviewed data? Next year the company launches its Lumi smart glasses, adding yet more likelihood of working cultures that demand near-infinite levels of accountability.

OSO AI Earbuds, £191, OSO8.com, Amazon.co.uk

Even G2 and Even R1 from Even Realities

Newly launched from Even Realities, the G2 Display smart glasses and R1 smart ring are what the company calls ‘quiet tech’. Each device uses AI and can work together, with the R1 focusing on health and wellbeing and the G2 offering ‘real-time conversational enhancement.’

What does that mean in practice? Even Realities’ Conversate tool is designed to supplement your engagement with prompts, explanations and context, all display via the integral micro-LED projectors. Prescription lenses can also be accommodated and the privacy minded will be delighted to hear that G2 has no cameras or external speakers, greatly reducing the creep factor associated with many smart glasses designs.

G2 offers other tools as well, including translation. The glasses can also be paired with the Even R1 Smart Ring. The zirconia ceramic and medical-grade stainless steel device can be used as a gesture controller for the G2, allowing you to navigate content and notes, as well as track wellness stats. It’s an eco-system that promises a great deal - a full review will follow soon.

Euvola AI Companion

We're sorry to say that the Euvola AI companion gives us the ick from the outset. Described as ‘the First At-Home Emotional AI Companion for Human Presence and Memory’, the Euvola loses points straight away through the prominent use of certain Tesla CEO in their promotional imagery (which we’ve spared you).

We’re not sure if the alternatives are any better, because the USP of this desktop device is to ‘create a comforting, familiar presence that evolves over time.’ The sample avatars on display are either Anime characters, generically hot AI-types or divisive billionaires, but the intention is that users upload a familiar face or likeness and voice sample to create their own ‘24/7 True Empathy AI’.

Euvola claims that their tech ‘really does bring the world of “Black Mirror” to life,’ a Category 1 grade example of missing the point. The proof is in the pudding, however, and with no devices to review we can only speculate as to how Euvola will look, act and impact upon its users.

The device itself resembles a high-tech picture frame with 8” portrait display, with ambient lighting as well as proximity sensors that allow Euvola to ‘wake up’ when you’re nearby.

The company claims that psychologists and other experts were involved in the development of the ‘Empathetic Response System’, but if truth be told we’re in unchartered territory here. Obvious use cases include memorialising family members or absent friends – why have imaginary conversations with a late relative when you could be chatting with their Cloud-based avatar about your day? Don’t answer that.

Pay the premium subscription, and presumably the interaction is even deeper. Nevertheless, the company’s Kickstarter was a quickfire success, so it certainly appeals to someone.

Although privacy is high on the company’s list of considerations, we shudder to think of the many ways the tech could be misused. Perhaps Charlie Brooker should have been consulted from the outset?

Euvola, $245, GetEuvola.com

Casio Moflin

And finally, something furry. Never mind the perils of becoming emotionally attached to a chatbot, what the lonely really want is a soft toy with a personality.

The Casio Moflin isn’t the first and certainly won’t be the last smart companion to hit the market. Resembling a legless, mouthless guinea pig, the Moflin is equipped with sensors, a speaker and servos to create animal-mimicking movements.

The idea is that the Moflin evolves a personality over time and although it doesn’t require ‘feeding’ like a Tamagotchi, the Moflin will still sulk if you neglect it. The idea is that the furry fellow’s combinations of sound and movement ease stress and provide comfort, with the ability to give positive feedback to petting and storking.

Moflin has a little ‘bed’ for recharging and the MofLife app offers insights into the emotional state of your new companion. We've not yet been able to pet one in person, but if any other exponents of AI-driven animals are reading this, we'd be happy to give their creations a try.

Casio Moflin, £369, Casio.com

Digital art has been bruised by two acronyms rich with uncertainty, NFTs and AI, each adding a layer of obfuscation to the endeavours of anyone working in pixels rather than paint. True ‘generative art’ – that is to say, procedural art created by hand-crafted code – has therefore suffered, de-platformed and overwhelmed by AI slop and dubious get-rich-quick schemes.

Attempting to right these wrongs is the starting for a new digital platform, Layer Canvas, a start-up initiated by Deviant Art founder Angelo Sotira. With industrial design by Will Howe at Demo, the Layer Canvas is billed as the first true dedicated platform for digital art, a museum-quality 1.1m2 display contained within an aluminium frame that’s distinct from a regular flat screen.

In fact, the Layer Canvas is a computer you hang on your wall, incorporating not just a high-definition museum grade screen but all the processing power required to drive generative artworks – ‘painted in code’. The aluminium frame conceals a dedicated GPU that enables the canvas to run real-time code-based art from a growing library of unique pieces, all curated by the platform.

‘The clarity is on another level compared to video,’ says Howe, ‘there’s no compression or artefacts.’ In fact, this kind of all-in-one platform has never existed before, beyond using a powerful computer hooked up to a separate screen.

The team approached artists working with code to find out what they wanted from a dedicated platform, and this was the result, a very intentional surface for art – with no sound, no family photo albums, weather, TV or other distractions. The 1:1 ratio was also a deliberate move away from the filmic 16:9 and other traditional media ratios.

Howe’s studio was also involving in the branding and business plan, in addition to the industrial design. Back when he was working at Map Project Office, Howe was on the team that developed the Sky Glass television, a project that brought plenty of close involvement with the fast-moving display sector.

‘It’s a very high-performance back-lit LED panel,’ the designer says of the Layer system, ‘it’s always on and has anti-glare coating and a high contrast true black display to do the art justice.’ Other aspects of the design focused on performance and precision, such as the relatively thick panel, rather than a tech-centric sophistication. ‘The 1:1 ratio takes it away from the language of television,’ Howe says, ‘it’s designed to hang on the wall, or on a picture rail just in front of a wall, or even as a room divider.’

To achieve the latter, the rear panel had to look as good as the front, so a gridded design was chosen to make it feel more sculptural and elegant, with Donald Judd cited as an inspiration. ‘It feels more like an ornament for the home, not a fixture that’s just stuck on,’ Howe says. ‘We didn’t want it to feel like a piece of tech – it’s totally passive.’ Layer’s CCO Ben Wolstenholme describes the panel as being like a fireplace – a ‘reassuring presence.’

The art itself is perhaps something of an acquired taste. One of the driving forces behind the project is the American artist and coder Casey Reas, a professor in the Department of Design Media Arts at the University of California, Los Angeles, as well as a practitioner and the co-creator (with Ben Fry) of Processing, an open source ‘software sketchbook’ that is the computational heart of much of the work on display. ‘At the beginning, we went to some of the foundational people in generative art,’ says Wolstenholme, ‘Casey said that ‘I’ve waited all my career for this…. basically, it’s the best their art has ever looked.’

Many of the available pieces, including works by Reas, Andreas Nicolas Fischer, Anton Dubrovin, Arttu Koskela and more, evolve slowly, as if an abstract expressionist canvas was subtly shifting and changing throughout the day. Some run through cycles, others never repeat, and a ‘playlist’ can be created on the accompanying app with mood recommendations.

Many of the pieces are interactive, with parameters that can be changed via the app, ranging from forms and colour through to the speed of iteration. What’s more, Layer’s subscription model allows for artists to receive royalties based on how long each piece is ‘viewed’ by the subscriber base. Canvas is a progressive platform in more ways than one.

Layer.com, DemoStudio.co.uk

The latest piece of AI-powered note-taking technology has arrived from Plaud.ai. The new Plaud Note Pro goes straight to the top of the San Francisco-based company’s technology tree, above the recent NotePin and the original Note voice recorder. Following the same form factor as the latter, the newer device promises an AI-based approach to sifting through voice notes and call and meeting recordings to extract the finer points of conversation.

A finely detailed piece of industrial design, the tiny Note Pro is credit card-sized and barely any thicker. Supplied with a leather wallet and magnetically attachable USB-C charge cable, the chief innovation is the introduction of a 1-inch screen that indicates recording status. Made from Gorilla Glass and aluminium, the Note Pro is less than 3mm thick, with a rippling design that’s elegant and discreet.

Further upgrades include a better audio reach thanks to more microphones than the original Note and the ability to continuously record for 50 hours (versus 30 hours in the original). Onboard storage tops out at 64GB and there is also 75 days’ worth of standby battery life. For the first time, the company has also included Apple Find My support to help track lost devices. All this is impressive, but the Note Pro is nothing without a connection to the cloud.

Plaud.ai’s model is based on using existing LLMs (large language models) to process its beautifully captured data, with a bespoke app that handles the cloud uploading and subsequent transcript and/or summary. Out of the box, the Note Pro will work, but the company hopes that power users and big companies will shell out to get access to faster and more efficient AI models. The new hardware and software helps – the Note Pro contains ‘studio grade’ recording hardware and noise isolation algorithms and can automatically detect whether a conversation is a phone call or in-person, for example.

Given the device’s reliance on the app, you could be forgiven for wondering what the point of the physical hardware is at all, given that most smartphones offer access to similar functionality. Cleverly, the Note Pro is effectively asking you to hold two contradictory notions at the same time. The first is the intentionality that a separate physical device can give to a task, just like how a standalone digital camera can help focus the eye on image-making, despite the better sensor and power of your smartphone. The little Note Pro can also connect to your phone to record calls.

The second is the idea that you should succumb to the warm embrace of AI-driven processes. Now we're not suggesting that Plaud's computational abilities bear any relationship to the fiendish combination of brilliance and the ability to erase culture that generative AI has achieved. Instead, there's a case for arguing that this 'soft' use of the results gleaned from processing vast caches of data is one area where 'AI' works rather well. Plaud Intelligence, the company’s cloud-based service, can do an awful lot, not least its ability to support the transcription of 112 languages.

Transcripts come labelled with individual speakers, thanks to the company’s proprietary way of recording audio data and separating speakers. Most importantly of all, your personal Plaud Intelligence database will grow in sophistication over time, taking notes, visuals and voices and ‘weaving them together across time and context’. There's even a 'press to highlight' function that you can use in real time to flag certain areas of conversation for future recall and analysis.

For those whose livelihood relies heavily on tracking who said what and when, the idea of the Note Pro is tempting, especially the ability to off-load great chunks of the working week into a perpetual, ever-evolving database of liability. There are use cases everywhere, including journalism of course, but Plaud’s CEO Nathan Xu, who founded the company in 2021, started off in investment banking. Unsurprisingly, it's in the high-stakes worlds of finance and law where such a device could prove itself to be invaluable.

Pro users will be able to access over 2,000 dedicated templates, many of which have been tailored specifically for meetings and projects in particular industries, from healthcare to law and education. Xu describes Note Pro as ‘not just a note taker, [but] a thinking partner that brings structure, clarity and actionability to everyday conversations’.

To get the most of Plaud Note Pro, you really have to go all in; there are no half measures with this kind of AI-powered information buffet. Sure, you can get an effective transcription from Google Recorder or Apple Notes, and many iterations of common online meeting applications will also summarise and present minutes. Short of a back-to-back comparison, there's no saying whether Plaud beats its rivals in accuracy or speed. However, dipping in and out of a machine-generated transcript is very different to having months of boardroom discussions uploaded, precisely minuted, analysed and scoured for ‘action points’.

Nevertheless, this impressive piece of hardware design feels yoked to AI’s signature verbosity. As a test, I recorded family discussions about a night out on the town. ‘No formal decisions or outcomes were established,’ the Plaud App concluded at the end of its summary, which also noted that it was ‘an informal conversation that touched on several disconnected personal topics’.

These notes, with their analysis and ‘mind map’ diagram, were also substantially longer than the original transcript. Just as you know when someone has padded out a pitch or an email with unwanted AI-generated cruft, the Plaud App won’t necessarily provide a straightforward shortcut in the everyday working environment.

Certain professions – and people – thrive on words rather than actions – this is where the Plaud Note Pro would be in its element. AI proponents might promise a future shaped by labour-saving, but as the Plaud Note Pro so neatly demonstrates, a casual over-reliance on the technology has a habit of generating even more data to digest.

Plaud Note Pro, £169, Plaud Intelligence subscription extra, shipping late September 2025, Plaud.ai, Plaud_official

Who – or rather what – will make the next Chanel No. 5? For centuries, fine fragrance has been the domain of highly trained perfumers, or ‘noses’, whose craft involves not just technical skill but deep intuition. Traditionally, launching a new scent would include hundreds of collaborators across conceptualisation, testing, sales, and formulation, and was a time-consuming and expensive process (hence the high price tag on many luxury perfumes). But now, with dramatic advances in AI, it's never been easier for fragrance professionals, as well as novices, to go from idea to bottled reality, sometimes within minutes.

Proponents say AI not only cuts costs and democratises the field but also makes fragrances more sustainable, as climate change impacts natural resources, and with mounting ethical concerns around animal-derived scents, AI-driven synthetic alternatives offer a more accessible, potentially eco-friendlier path. AI also allows noses to experiment with hundreds of creative pairings, often at the push of a button.

However, others point out AI’s own environmental and ethical concerns, and raise worries over what happens to the artistry if we start reducing scent formulation to algorithms. But does it truly have to be a binary? Regardless of where you land, the future is here – and it looks a lot like AI.

Surprisingly, leading creatives are already embracing it. Calice Becker – VP Perfumer at Givaudan and creator of Dior J’Adore – helped develop and, in 2022, launched Carto. This AI-powered tool uses a massive ‘Odour Value Map’ to generate scents from over 5,000 rare or niche global ingredients. Called the ‘ChatGPT of fragrance development,’ Carto’s encyclopedic knowledge is said to be up to five times more comprehensive than a human perfumer, and is meant to craft rough ‘fragrance sketches’ to be expanded by human artists.

International Flavours & Fragrances (IFF) also recently launched its Science of Wellness programme, which combines decades of R&D with neuroscience data to design fragrances proven to enhance emotion. Paco Rabanne’s Phantom, for instance, was crafted using IFF’s ‘augmented creativity tool’ and neural data from over 45 million brain measures to track the emotional response to scent pairings.

To be competitive seems to be to experiment. Recently, YSL Beauty grabbed headlines when it partnered with EMOTIV brain-measuring software to bring EEG-enabled, scent-reactive headsets to global stores. Other fashion houses are also using augmentation for 21st-century facelifts. In 2024, Prada released Paradoxe Virtual Flower, utilising AI to reimagine its legendary Paradoxe line by tapping into its vast scent library.

‘With Virtual Flower, we are reinventing Paradoxe,’ explained Nadège Le Garlantezec, the brand’s perfumer. ‘My team and I used an artificial intelligence tool – for us, this was a way of pushing the limits of creativity,’ they say of their specialised system, which allowed for the mining of ‘new olfactory territories’ by suggesting compelling and unusual pairings.

Similarly, Givenchy’s Very Irresistible franchise was recently updated with AI and neuroscience, introducing a new ‘anti-morose’ rose extract to organically enhance moods. AI technology is also being adopted by smaller brands, including Dossier, known for recreating popular scents at a discount, which unveiled AInée, an algorithm blending AI with human perfumer expertise to offer personalised scent recommendations.

Some creators see this emerging technology as a bridge to new human experiences. At Atelier Jolie in New York City, through 14 June, visitors can experience a unique partnership between The Invisible Dog art museum and Everyhuman’s Algorithmic Perfumery.

Stepping into the space that once housed artist Jean-Michel Basquiat’s studio, a system of glass vitrines and pipes is attached to a mobile scientific lab that offers an olfactory experience on demand. The brainchild of scent designer Anahita Mekanik and artist-technologist Frederik Duerinck, it transforms user data into customised scents.

After filling out a survey reminiscent of a Myers-Briggs personality test, information is fed into the algorithm and sifted through the machine’s entire palette, partitioned through the scent lab, and then distilled to create a physical manifestation of your personality (mine was a cross between a fruity/floral essence and new age incense, an odd pairing, perhaps, but fittingly personal).

The pair don’t see what they do as replacing the painstaking work of crafting customised perfumes; instead, they utilise a sophisticated lab technician as a creation partner. ‘We’re expanding the pie,’ says Mekanik. ‘We give you a tool, but it’s more about creativity and moving away from traditional consumerism,’ she says. ‘You can share your formula if you love it; it becomes a great way to connect with other humans.’

Frank Voelkl, a principal perfumer at DSM-Firmenich and veteran nose, believes AI can be a foundational instrument. ‘When used thoughtfully, AI is an ally, not a replacement,’ he says, noting it can manage onerous tasks like juggling complex datasets, consumer preferences, raw material availability, and ingredient interactions – enabling more efficient and precise formulation. And for perfumers, more bandwidth for experimentation.

At the vanguard, Osmo, which emerged from Google’s research department, sees the use of AI to create unique smells while experimenting with formerly far-out concepts like scent teleportation and olfactory intelligence.

Osmo is led by neuroscientist Alex Wiltschko, who fell in love with perfume as a tween in suburban Texas, where he saw a portal to new worlds. ‘When someone sprayed this invisible mist, people changed around them, behaviours changed. They changed. I was watching magic happen,’ he says of his inspiration to study olfactory neuroscience, later completing his PhD at Harvard before swapping academia for entrepreneurship and a role at Google. On a mission to demystify the world of scent, he created Generation by Osmo, a fragrance house that utilises both molecular and natural ingredients. ‘With Generation, anyone can launch a fragrance brand,’ he says, ‘if you have an idea, we can help build it.’

Wiltschko sees unlimited potential, including rare scent recreation, the production of biodegradable materials, and the ability to make perfume adaptable to allergy sufferers. Don’t be surprised if some day your computer can even transport scent over your next Zoom call. ‘A challenge in the fragrance market is that the world’s moving faster – tastes are becoming more niche and personalised, and the need to have something unique is growing,’ he says. ‘If you smell like somebody else, if your product smells like something else on the shelf, you’re going to get left behind.’

Not everyone is sold. Beauty writer and fragrance historian Arabelle Sicardi runs a creative collective called Perfumed Pages as well as popular scent swaps where guests exchange fragrances and fan over artistry. ‘I understand the merits of AI – it’s a great tool for someone who already understands the craft – but I also know it will be used as shortcuts for human jobs,’ she posits, noting that perfume culture isn’t about the end product but the exploration and depth of knowledge accrued. She notes that for a new generation of perfume enthusiasts, it's not about finding ‘the sexiest perfume that'll make them more desirable,’ but appreciating the artistry.

‘The niche community continues to grow – and there are no signs of it stopping,’ said Jake Levy and Matt Belanger of Stéle, one of NYC’s most influential indie perfume stores, of the boom in smaller fragrance houses. ‘While sometimes met with criticism from those who may not understand or appreciate the journey it takes to find a scent, there is a thriving community that finds enjoyment in fragrance both as a hobby and profession.’ They note that indie fragrances have broad appeal, but they're seeing a particularly strong trend with Gen Alpha. And as anyone who has paid attention to the rise of Scent-Tok can see, the first digitally native generation can't get enough of perfume – with many preferring indie fragrances.

The pair see that, in tandem with the rise of AI, consumers are seeking exclusivity and discovery – the equivalent of browsing a record store for a new favorite band. ‘If a luxury brand sells 500,000 fragrance bottles annually, how exclusive is that?’ Meanwhile, Stéle stocks over 600 fragrances, most of which are from brands that produce fewer than 3,000 bottles of each scent. ‘While AI can speed up the creative process and offer precision, it can’t replicate the heart and soul that make a fragrance truly special,’ they say. ‘The magic of any creative work comes from the passion and effort behind it – the journey in getting there – and you can always sense when that’s missing.’

Trey Taylor, a magazine-world veteran and the creator of Serviette perfumes, sees the rise of artisan fragrance experiences, experimental spaces, and scent walking tours against the backdrop of the AI revolution as part of a larger shift in behaviour. ‘There’s more openness now, both in terms of the exposure and the places that provide these spaces, where perfumers and perfume interested people can connect.’ Trey also notes that the many hours he logged learning the ins and outs of perfuming and scent matching ultimately made him a stronger artist and innovator. ‘Everyone needs to go through that kind of training.’

With an industry worth over $60 billion, there’s a lot at stake in the upcoming debate over the use of AI in perfume – one that will no doubt bring radical transformation. But as for whether an algorithm will someday create the next Baccarat Rouge or Opium? The future, as they say, is still unwritten.

'I’m getting older and I want to have an interesting life, says 66-year-old industrial designer Ross Lovegrove. 'I want to be engaged in really contemporary, of-the-moment things, like space and AI.'

It’s why Lovegrove was particularly excited recently to be invited to collaborate, for charity, with the Polaris Dawn space project on a reworking of his 'Go' chair for Bernhardt, this time repurposing shockwave data from the SpaceX mission launch to create a seat-pad pattern.

But even creatives boldly going where no die-cast magnesium has gone before get brought back down to Earth: one of the UAE-based designer’s latest projects has been to help the Portuguese architectural hardware company JNF face off plagiarists; design rip-offs have, Lovegrove stresses, become endemic. 'You see the copyists at the trade shows, scanning new products with their phones,' he laments. 'I understand the demand. People are under financial stress and most don’t have £10,000 for a sofa. You see a lot of the copies in Dubai – everything is just a bit off, you know?'

Lovegrove’s solution? To provide JNF with the inimitable: a collection of door handles in his signature biomorphic style, but 'impossible to make with any other process' than the combination of digital data, enhanced laser sintering and hand-finishing used here. The results – which arguably move the door handle more into luxury territory –have already scooped him a 2025 German Design Award.

That Lovegrove is willing to take on something as seemingly mundane as a door handle – while simultaneously working on a confidential project for Google DeepMind and another, ‘Ridon’, a sculpture in Carrara marble for an exhibition next month (his first foray into sculpture, created in collaboration with a robot) – speaks to the diversity of his approach. He says he will have a go at anything, 'But I pride myself on not doing anything retro,' he laughs. 'Retro is awful.

'You only have to look at retro's impact on the auto industry, for example, which has run out of steam now. I’m not a futurist either. I just don’t like static things but do like things with an embedded animation to them. I’m a sculptor of technology,' he adds, tongue firmly in cheek.

But since founding the design agency Deond in 2023, he has been pulled closer still to the cutting-edge. Lovegrove still has his own projects, 'that fit 100 per cent into me', as he puts it, 'but Deond is about being part of the absolutely now culture – and that’s AI.' Indeed, Ila Columbo – his partner, in life and business – is an expert in the field, and Lovegrove has been converted.

'Anyone of my generation, and my skills base, would be skeptical of AI [and its role in design]. I’ve seen a lot of wonderful [AI-generated] imagery in my time and wondered how [the works] would actually be made,' he says. 'But I think instead of moaning about the impact of AI it’s better to get on the horse and ride it. Feed my body of work AI and you get wonderful things out. AI is complementary, like having a conversation with a very intelligent friend. But you still need human input. We still need to be part of the process, but the potential is, I think, utopian.'

Certainly, he enthuses, he is finding a more progressive outlook in the UAE – design-wise, at least – than he did back in the UK. The West, he suggests, is slower to move and more resistant to change. In contrast, a can-do attitude and the desert landscape are providing a new set of local design challenges to get his teeth into, from sustainability – check out Deond’s recent Enfold Pavilion at Dubai Design Week, made of recycled cardboard nodules and inspired by a palm tree trunk – to major infrastructure projects in a region beset by scorching heat and a lack of water.

'You just have to stay interested in everything, in whatever is around you,' says Lovegrove. 'And if someone says I’m an “interesting designer” that, for me, is still the greatest compliment.'

rosslovegrove.com
deond.com

For the past week, all eyes have been on Google as the company wraps up its annual I/O conference with a wave of new announcements. You can find reams of online speculation and bulleted lists elsewhere, but what, ultimately, does all this change – both incremental and monumental – mean for the end user, us?

In amongst a cavalcade of new features, tweaks and updates, the big takeaway was that it’s no longer all about the OS. Granted, Google announced the substantial overhaul of Android and Wear OS with the introduction of a new evolved design approach, Material 3 Expressive. This will be the underpinnings of what is now the 16th incarnation of Google’s home-brewed phone operating system, Android 16. But what matters more to Google – and by extension you – are the creeping features of AI functionality into all facets of search and, by extension, consumption.

Android is by far the world’s most dominant mobile OS, with over 70 per cent of market share. Apple’s iOS hoovers up around 28 per cent, leaving a couple of points for independents to scrap over. In the US, things are a little different, and iOS dominates (c57 per cent to 42 per cent). When OS design changes, every pixel shift and icon change, launch animation and enhanced feature is minutely scrutinised in order to determine who will retain the edge for the next cycle of tech.

The list of Google’s new announcements was especially long this year. Google’s Gemini AI became a little more ubiquitous and a little more pricey, as the top tier version of the system, Google AI Ultra, bundles the cutting edge of the technology into a $250 monthly package that includes generative video (Flow, capable of sating the desire for Guy Ritchie/Grand Theft Auto mash-ups running at a seamless 40 clichés per second), the Whisk visualiser, a new research assistant, Project Mariner, and a subscription to YouTube Premium thrown in. Presumably so you can use the service without having to sit through a slew of AI-generated ads.

For AI watchers, the most significant announcement of the week was the arrival of the fully fledged AI Mode, first in the US but rolling out to other markets in due course. AI Mode effectively splices AI-generated responses into search, allowing users to make conversational enquiries either via text or speech and then collating contextually relevant results that can be queried and refined.

Shopping and searching with AI

In practice, this is how many people already use search engines – asking a question – but AI Mode is about creating a set of queries and responses that flows naturally. Think something along the lines of ‘can you remind me how much the set lunch was at that restaurant I found yesterday’, or some such.

Caveats? It’s too early to tell, but given the slow degradation of ‘traditional’ search via the incursion of first sponsored results and latterly AI-generated summaries, it’s not hard to see how AI Mode could quickly become the archetypal ‘mid’ experience, guiding us all on invisible rails to businesses and services that just happen to be inextricably commercially co-dependent on the big G.

Naturally, AI Mode will also become the go-to portal for Google’s shopping experience. Google claims to have no fewer than 50 billion product listings on its systems, refreshing two billion of them every hour for accurate price and availability data. In an attempt to make this avalanche of choice feel less overwhelming, AI Mode debuts a couple of new features, including the ability to ‘virtually try on clothes’ using an AI that mimics the drape and fall of clothing across a wide variety of body types. Or you can go one stage further (for US customers only right now) and upload a full-length photograph of yourself to use as the basis for the virtual clothes horse system.

In other news, there was a renewed play for the AR/VR space with the arrival of Android XR, an ‘AI-powered operating system’ designed for augmented reality glasses. Capable of overlaying information, from navigation to how-to guides, to text messages and search, onto the world around you, Android XR will be appeal to a certain kind of early adopter, for sure, but is more likely to find its niche in industrial and commercial applications.

A new look and feel

Google is heralding Material 3 Expressive as one of its ‘biggest update in years’. For Wear OS 6 devices, that means making more of the circular interface, with scaling animations that appear to emphasise and exaggerate the ‘water droplet’ design of the display. Animations add a further sense of depth.

On Android devices, the Material 3 Expressive toolkit takes a similarly fluid and organic approach to animations and haptic feedback. Developers now have access to a revised palette and typography as well as having more freedom when creating shaped buttons and interfaces. The many flavours of Android give the OS an untethered, slightly anarchic feel that feels a world apart from Apple’s rigorous rules and high aesthetic standards. Google clearly hopes that a more expansive set of highly curated options will help close the gap.

Android 16 should start rolling out in the next few weeks, initially to Google’s own flagship devices. It also means that when the next tranche of Pixel devices drop – the tenth generation – they’ll come with Android 16 straight out of the box. There’s a long list of enhancements and new features, beyond the new aesthetic, including a Live Update tracker for deliveries, cabs, etc, new camera functionality, more Gemini integration, as well as many behind-the-scenes updates to security and information sharing. Better and more intuitive desktop mirroring is also coming, allowing you to use your Android phone as a portable minicomputer when paired with a suitable screen and keyboard.

Google describes all these enhancements as a way of making watch and phone more ‘fluid, personal and glanceable,’ but this feels like sleight of hand, because the whole business model of a modern device is not about glancing but about glueing. With every launch, conference, update and overhaul, the tech giants are simply putting more and more power into these devices of mass distraction, while simultaneously promising hacks and workarounds that purport to make our lives easier and more seamless and less easily diverted by the fast-flowing streams of information. I/O is an especially apt name for an event of this nature, for the ins and outs of digital culture have never felt more imbalanced and precarious.

The internet shifts up a gear

Unfortunately, all the things that make the web bad are still bad even if the interface is shiny, beautiful and new – UI changes can’t cloak the essential emptiness of the experience, just as a glossy AI-generated image captures the attention for a few seconds until its dark, lifeless core is revealed. In that respect, Android 16’s aesthetic improvements are merely a band-aid over a realm of chaos, patching security, guiding choices, and maintaining a grip on the essential tools needed to navigate the modern world, all the while encouraging ever greater user involvement and data commitment.

On top of all of this, AI is simultaneously invisible and everywhere. AI Mode is just one more step on the road to its the inevitable and unstoppable integration with search. If Wi-Fi is considered an essential service, like water or electricity, then isn’t the ability to search for information an extension of that service? Commercialising search is like plumbing in an apartment and then serving up soda water or an influencer’s energy drink through the taps, depending on who has paid for the placement. It remains to be seen whether greater AI integration will be able to undo this or simply accelerate it.

To the naysayers, AI has already been derailed by commercial concerns, trumping safety and ethics and copyright and all manner of the apparently outmoded but once essential ways we used to conduct ourselves. There are still pockets of opposition holding out. The idea that generative AI is already beyond parody still holds sway for now. Thus far, the vast majority of AI art, music, writing and films has achieved the status of nothing more than a sophisticated, rather more egregious type of photocopying, plagiarism in its purest form.

However, as a new generation of creatives grows up with a technology that’s maturing at a terrifying rate, it’s unlikely this will hold true for much longer. There are already plenty of prompt jockeys out there capable of cajoling the machine into creating something interesting. A generation that can find therapeutic solace in the ‘thoughts’ of an AI chatbot isn’t less discerning, just less concerned with the distinction.

So what next?

For now, our devices and desires are inextricably linked, a situation that Google’s raft of changes seeks to cement. But in the future, will conventional screen-based devices still be at the centre of our world? As the annual bipartisan announcement techfest got underway, cleverly sandwiched between Google's I/O conference and Apple's WWDC, Sam Altman's OpenAI quietly let slip that it was working with none other than Jony Ive. And not just Ive and his LoveFrom cohort, but a team of crack technologists, including alumni from Apple, who have formed a specialist start-up, io, to exclusively shape OpenAI's future move into personal devices. Altman isn't just employing io, but owns it outright, although Ive's hard-won independence will remain.

It’s inconceivable that Apple, Google, et al, don’t have teams hard at work on a similar paradigm-busting approach to the way we communicate, consume and create. Just as screen-based reaches its apogee, the digital world could suddenly shift in ways we can’t yet imagine.

Google I/O 2025 can be explored in full at IO.Google

Historically, show gardens at the Chelsea Flower Show couple artful, high-end planting design with similarly ambitious architectural structures, from walls and waterways to shelters, bridges and pavilions. However, with the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) striving towards greener credentials for its signature and world-renowned annual flower show – including reductions in carbon emissions and waste materials, and ensuring its short-lived exhibition gardens are relocated to lasting homes, post-show – more sustainable approaches to such hardscaping elements are integral to its future. Fresh this year (if ‘fresh’ is the word) is the ingenious use of architectural fungal material, with organic, ’root-like’ fungal mycelium strands providing the cladding for a pavilion within one of 2025’s standout Chelsea gardens.

For his gold medal-winning ‘Avanade Intelligent’ show garden this year – undoubtedly a centre of interest along the show’s prestigious Main Avenue – garden designer Tom Massey has collaborated with architect Je Ahn of Studio Weave (whose portfolio includes the striking Seosaeng House in South Korea and a transformed Devon cottage, Made of Sand) to conceive a low-carbon garden of predominately reused materials. Highlighting the vital importance of urban trees (in filtering air pollution, cooling streets and supporting wildlife), Massey and Ahn’s garden features attractive, architectural species of Chinese cedar and Sichuan pepper trees, but also a wooden pavilion with outer panels fabricated from mycelium-bonded wood shavings. ‘Part of the brief we set ourselves was to make the whole landscape from reused and low-carbon materials’, says Ahn. ‘Talking with Avanade [the garden’s sponsor], we decided we’d like to grow certain elements of the building itself, and mycelium was the perfect material’.

Explaining the fungal fabrication process, Chelsea gold-medalist Massey describes how waste pulp wood – including wood shavings resulting from the pavilion’s construction – was inoculated with mycelium, which grew and bonded the wood together like glue, creating the organically patterned panels. ‘The mycelium stops growing when you air-dry it, and fixes in place. It will slowly degrade over time and can be composted and replaced, offering a carbon-negative, nature-based material solution.’ Unlike plastic and composite materials, he says, this is a material that doesn’t outlive its useful life. ‘There’s nothing toxic in it – you just compost it, and it gives back to the soil.’

Massey and Ahn’s Chelsea garden also draws attention to the perils faced by trees planted in urban environments. ‘Around the world urban trees are under threat’, says Massey. ‘Three in ten die within the first year of planting, 50 per cent die within ten years. That’s because of a range of factors, including climate change.’ To combat this, the garden demonstrates innovative use of AI to monitor the health of its trees, with sensors recording elements such as growth, sap flow, air quality and soil conditions. The AI then analyses this data to provide nurturing advice. 'The AI has been trained with specific information on each tree – how it should be grown and its water requirements. It also accesses weather data, so it can say what you do and don’t need to keep an eye on. It gives gardeners insights into what’s going on, so they can devote resources to a particular tree.’

The Avanade Intelligent Garden, which also features layers of biodiverse and naturally resilient woodland plantings, including a range of edible species, will be permanently relocated to Manchester's Mayfield Park following its exhibition at the Chelsea Flower Show this week.

Also read: Innovative coastal garden turns heads at this year’s RHS Chelsea Flower Show

Featuring a whopping 750 participants, ‘Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective.’, the main show at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2025, opened this weekend in the historic city of Venice. The world’s biggest global festival of design for the built environment was curated this year by Italian architect Carlo Ratti, who opened his statement for the official launch, highlighting how ‘architecture has always been a response to a hostile climate.’ He continues: ‘Adaptation demands a fundamental shift in architectural practice.’

In response to this, Ratti set out to find common ground, adjustments, and planned or impromptu collaborations between us and our surroundings, the natural and the artificial. The goal? To find inspiration in order to carve a way forward and out of the climate crisis, yes, but beyond that, to also envision ways of coexisting with our context in a more harmonious, meaningful way for all.

Stepping inside ‘Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective.’

The result – over 300 projects – takes up, as always, the biggest part of the Arsenale’s vast halls, spilling out to its surrounding grounds and gardens. It would also have been in the Giardini’s Central Pavilion, which, until now, also played host to a good part of the main show, however, this is now closed for restoration, which left the existing Arsenale spaces (an old rope factory) to pick up the largest part of the contributions.

Invited contributions included architects from across the globe, lots of academics and researchers, as well as those selected from an open call for the first time in the show's history. Ratti described his approach as seeing the biennale as a platform to converse with the entire world of architecture. ‘The central curatorial exercise for Biennale Architettura 2025 was the Space for Ideas,' he said.

Seeing as the show brings together nature and technology, built space and innovation, Wallpaper* transport & technology editor Jonathan Bell and architecture & environment director Ellie Stathaki were dispatched to attend the preview days in May, ahead of the highly anticipated show’s public opening on the 10th May 2025. Here is what they made out of it all.

Two Wallpaper* editors discuss the 19th Architecture Biennale in Venice

Ellie Stathaki: I found the entrance to the biennale show very powerful. The first room, especially as the opening day followed a downpour of rain which made temperatures outside cooler, was a bit of a shock. The room, prefaced by Ratti’s thoughts that architecture has always been a response to the climate, was about walking into a thick, hot, dark room. Somewhat stifling and jarring. But I imagine that was the point, and it definitely made me sit up and take notice.

Jonathan Bell: Absolutely. I'd go so far as to say it was the most powerful Arsenale opener ever. Imagine an oppressively hot path through curved reflecting ponds that evoke Richard Wilson’s seminal 20:50, a reflection pool of sump oil installed at the original Saatchi Gallery in 1991. Above this is a hanging garden of whirring, wheezing bolt-on aircon units, of the type found attached to hundreds of thousands of building façades across the hotter hemispheres. Navigate this and you’re confronted with your own reflection: you, the person who just flew into this sinking, crumbling and waterlogged city, right on the frontlines of the fight between architecture and climate.

ES: Agreed. This immersion was just what was needed to get you focused, as you walked in, presumably unawares, from Venice’s magical, historical context. It also set the mood for the parts of the exhibition just beyond, where nature's ever-presence is discussed. Several projects were wrapped in nature in some shape or form, and highlighted plants and animals also caught my attention – such as Jeanne Gang’s focus on non-human inhabitants of Venice, eco-diversity in cities and citizen science.

There was also the plant-powered air and water purifying ideas – one of them, ‘Canal Café’ by Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Natural Systems Utilities, SODAI, Aaron Betsky and Davide Oldani, which makes coffee using the city’s canal water, won this year’s Golden Lion for the best participation. Additionally, there was some architecture using bamboo canopies for cooling (a concept by architects Coldefy).

JB: Yes, it was definitely an approach that cast its net far and wide. Some of the technology felt a little forced – unhappy-looking robots – and I still think that the interface between architecture and nature is still waiting for its killer app moment. It's hard to fault the ambition, though.

ES: There were quite a few clear groupings within the displays overall, if I’d try and categorise things – projects centred on materials (natural, or bio-scientific); mapping and statistics (I am thinking, for instance, MIT’s Senseable City Lab and Journey’s interesting research on Brazil’s favelas – or Limbo Accra’s contribution which continues its work on documenting abandoned buildings); a lot of AI, robotics and technology; and even a few projects venturing beyond the capacity of the Earth’s atmosphere.

JB: There was a lot of that old Biennale standby – create an unusual material, form it into odd-shaped blocks and build a pavilion out of it. There were also beautiful examples of information design, a vision of circularity rendered in a paper cut, or a dense tapestry of the process and scale of banana palm cultivation. But does taking heartbreakingly intensive and destructive processes and rendering them in a beautiful abstract way help or hinder our understanding?

ES: I think the open call, as well as the invited submission aspect, meant that Carlo had a wealth of great projects and ideas to work with. It must have been really tempting to include as many of them as possible, and celebrate the diversity of the ideas and also the backgrounds of the exhibitors. And the fact that space was more limited this year, with the Central Pavilion out of commission, meant that the rooms were pretty packed, a rich selection, which, however, required a lot of attention to get through. 750 exhibitors and 300 displays are quite a lot more than past biennales offered. I remember feeling Alejandro Aravena’s in 2016 was pretty packed, and that was only 88 contributions.

JB: More participants equals greater inclusivity, which is a very valid approach. There's a corresponding sense of urgency around climate, war, injustic, etc., as well as a feeling that architecture itself feels under threat – from AI, from rising costs, from regimes that don't value creative culture. I couldn't help but think that the Biennale showed architects making more work for themselves in the face of some imagined mass extinction event for the profession. Embracing technology for technology's sake. For example, LiDAR scanning Brazilian favelas to explore their structural integrity.

ES: Back to the displayed projects, at the same time, there were quite a few which spoke to me. The project by Cristina Parreño Alonso, J.Roc Jih (of Studio J.Jih), and Skylar Tibbits, which worked with volcanoes, creating a structure that guides and cools down lava, surprised me. I always enjoy encountering something unexpected, and this definitely was in that world for me. And in the volume of works, I almost missed Tosin Oshinowo's beautifully shot, large-scale, immersive videos 'Alternative Urbanism: The Self-Organized Markets of Lagos' – which also got a special mention by the biennale jury – in my first sweep. I am so glad I didn't, in my second.

JB: Scanning ad-hoc housing was also unexpected and strangely beautiful, but it ticked another classic Biennale box, i.e. making a dramatic rendering of a marginalised space that was hard to connect to real life and real needs.

ES: There was also a section of the works that discussed working with traditional skills and/or knowledge and adapting it to our world today. A touch of retrofuturism in some, perhaps too? Would you agree?

JB: I did enjoy watching the bored robot ‘sweep’ up after the traditional Bhutanese wood carvers. That robot looked like it was deliberately skiving off doing any real work. Apparently, these little metal guys are going to learn new skills throughout the duration of the exhibition. I wonder if anyone will check up on that?

ES: I wonder! Speaking of new technologies that are learning from us. What did you make out of the AI-generated captions? For those who haven't been to the Biennale yet: there was a longer version of the caption texts, offering a fuller picture of each presented project, and then there was an AI-generated summary of it, over a sentence or two, beneath it. My initial thought was that I didn't need the condensed version, and I was worried that nuances and important points would be missed this way, but after a few rooms full of projects, my eye did end up going to the short version. Maybe these versions served as a comment about AI-condensing and processing, of which you read more and more these days.

JB: I felt the AI texts mocked our already faltering attention spans and ever-increasing reliance on the machine. Could we cross-check? Fact check? Sense check? It added to the crisis of confidence in the validity of creativity. How can we make sense of data when data has already made up its mind about us?

ES: It is exactly the sort of thing that raises worries in the industry and beyond - about how to use AI in architecture, and writing, for that matter, in a fruitful and safe way. So it's a good thing to bring it to the forefront and inspire more discussion around it.

JB: I also felt there were conflicting themes running through the Arsenale, the intersection of technological determinism – which architects have always loved – versus the embrace of a new analogue sensibility. Yet the end result wasn’t an elegant hybrid but the cyberpunk-y world of ad-hoc accretions and adaptations. You couldn’t criticise the sentiment – that we need to adapt and evolve failing systems of production and longstanding structural inequalities. I think the presentation could have been a bit less scattergun though – I liked the point Olly Wainwright made in his review in the Guardian that a two-day visit to the Arsenale would give you about 72 seconds to spend on each contributor.

ES: Many of the entries this year were about research or theoretical ideas. They could of course become reality, and there were some great analyses and reflections on existing work, structures already built and cities and our experience of them. But also, likely drawing on Carlo's own links to academia [Ratti teaches at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he directs the Senseable City Lab], a bit part of the biennale discussed the future - innovation and what's to come. Whether these are projects that will be realised or are there to hint at a potential future reality, we will have to see.

The 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale will run 10 May till 23 November 2025

labiennale.org

Love it or hate it, new technologies have been increasingly present in the creative space, and they seem to be here to stay. Renowned studios such as Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA) have been working on their own ways of using AI in architecture through bespoke software and a dedicated collaboration with NVIDIA; while social media is bursting with AI-generated images and visions, allowing everyone to have a go.

At the same time, it's a topic which divides deeply, throwing up challenges concerning authenticity of voice, plagiarism, responsibility and ethics (can a machine ever do what a human brain – and heart – can?). As exciting as having a new design assistant with the knowledge of the entire World Wide Web at their virtual fingertips may sound, potential pitfalls abound and learning how to work in this brave new world is paramount in moving forward. Regulations and guidelines should be coming into play, too.

So, when does one even begin? It is important to address AI as a tool, suggests architect Tim Fu, who has been using AI with an open mind since he founded his young and dynamic studio in 2023.

How to use AI in architecture

London-based Fu recently launched the ‘world’s first fully AI-driven architectural project’ – a residential scheme in Slovenia's Lake Bled. Committed to pushing the boundaries of the new AI digital tools in a sustainable and considered way in his daily practice, the architect talked to us, offering practical advice on how to use AI in architecture – including real examples that help guide and suggest ideas surrounding when to use it, and what to watch out for. Scroll down to find out more.

Tim Fu's tips on using AI in architecture

Wallpaper*: What draws you to AI?

Tim Fu: I've always been fascinated by the intersection of art and technology. AI, for me, isn't just a tool — it's a collaborator that opens new creative horizons. It draws me in because it challenges traditional workflows and invites a completely different way of thinking about design, form, and process. There's a kind of poetic tension between human intuition and machine intelligence, and I enjoy navigating that space.

W*: Why should an architecture studio use AI in its daily work? What’s the gain?

TF: The gain is twofold: speed and vision. AI augments our ability to iterate rapidly and test multiple scenarios without being bottlenecked by manual processes. But more than that, it helps uncover unexpected solutions — formal expressions or spatial relationships we might not arrive at through traditional means. For studios pushing boundaries, AI becomes an amplifier of creativity, not just productivity.

W*: Is there a real-life scheme that you used AI on? Please could you give an example of how it enhanced your work within it?

TF: Yes, a good example is our Lake Bled Estates project. We integrated AI into the conceptual design phase to explore site-sensitive organic massing. By feeding contextual data — topography, viewsheds, solar paths — into a generative AI model, we produced multiple options that maintained design integrity while optimising for sustainability and visual impact. It gave us a starting point that felt both grounded and unexpected. That’s the kind of creative leverage AI can offer.

W*: At what stage of an architecture project does the AI element come in?

TF: We use AI across all stages of a project — it’s not just limited to early ideation anymore. In the conceptual phase, it helps us rapidly explore form, mood, and spatial strategies. But as the project progresses, AI continues to play a key role. During design development and detailing, we use generative tools and LLMs to synthesise precedents, codes, and client briefs into actionable design logic. In later phases, especially in documentation and production, AI assists in organising and navigating large datasets — whether it’s automating schedules, optimising layouts, or even drafting components.

W*: What software or platforms do you use?

T: We build custom workflows that integrate platforms like Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, and our custom-trained models for visual ideation; Rhino/Grasshopper with plugins for modelling and parametric optimisation; and we’ve been developing UrbanGPT, our own text-to-model engine that uses LLMs for real-time urban planning. So it’s a mix of proprietary, open-source, and bespoke tools depending on the challenge.

W*: Are there areas in the design process that AI can specifically — or cannot at all — help an architecture studio with, in your view?

TF: AI excels at pattern recognition, image generation, and optimisation — so it’s fantastic for conceptualising form, generating visuals, or analysing large datasets like sun exposure or pedestrian flow. But it's less capable when it comes to nuanced decision-making, like understanding the emotional resonance of a space or navigating the politics of a stakeholder meeting. Those human layers of design — empathy, context, ethics — are still irreplaceable.

W*: What’s the most surprising element you’ve asked AI to do?

TF: We once tasked AI with creating speculative urban layouts based on poetic prompts. One was: 'Design a city where memory flows like water.' The output was surreal, yet somehow spatially coherent — fluid zones, nested loops of public space, architectural 'eddies.' It sparked a full design conversation. I love those moments when AI pushes you into the uncanny and makes you rethink your assumptions.

W*: What should an architect using AI be careful about? What are potential pitfalls?

FT: The biggest pitfall is mistaking AI's output for truth or finality. It’s only ever a suggestion — a prompt, not a prescription. There's also the ethical side: AI can replicate biases, plagiarise unintentionally, or overrepresent aesthetics that are popular online but contextually irrelevant. You have to keep a critical eye in the room, always.

W*: How do you mitigate those pitfalls?

TF: By maintaining a human-in-the-loop approach. We treat AI like an assistant with a vivid imagination, not a decision-maker. Every output goes through a rigorous filtering process where we question, reframe, and sometimes completely discard what AI suggests. We also build our own datasets when possible to minimise bias and ensure context alignment.

W*: What is the most exciting thing AI can bring into the architecture process?

TF: The most exciting thing is its potential to democratise and de-limit design. AI can help young studios punch above their weight, empower underserved communities to visualise their own futures, and offer architects entirely new typologies that were previously inconceivable. It’s a generative force that — when guided ethically — can lead to a renaissance in how we imagine and build.

W*: How do you see the use of AI developing in the near future within the architecture realm?

TF: I see AI becoming more embedded, more real-time, and more spatially aware. We'll likely see a shift from image-based tools to geometry-native AI that works natively with BIM and CAD environments. There’ll also be more collaborative models — where AI integrates not just into the design, but into stakeholder engagement, sustainability tracking, and even permitting. It’s not going to replace architects — but it will absolutely redefine what being an architect means.

timfu.com

This year, Microsoft turns 50, a significant waypoint in the valley of anguish that is Gen X middle age. In comparison, Generation Z Google (aged 26 and a half) is in the prime era of its shape-shifting, multifarious journey. Both companies are in a celebratory mood, with Microsoft issuing a clutch of microsites and retrospectives bathed in a golden glow, and Google consolidating its two-fisted grip on AI and AI-enabled hardware. As chance would have it, both Google and Microsoft have new, albeit virtual, product to talk about in the perennially fascinating realm of artificial intelligence. We sat down with key players from each company in an attempt to ascertain the status quo.

Google’s latest innovation is an update to Gemini Live, a service offered to its coterie of Gemini Advanced subscribers, as well as those who own a Google Pixel 9 (or new Pixel 9a) or Samsung’s Galaxy S25. Essentially, Live allows you to talk to the smart assistant in natural, everyday language, requesting answers and information and have ‘her’ respond in real time. The latest update adds video as a means of conveying information, in addition to the text, image and voice commands it already understands.

This is a realisation of some of the capabilities demonstrated last year in Project Astra, Google’s ongoing research into the idea of a true AI assistant. Up at Google’s central London HQ, we’re shown a few demos, with a Pixel phone relaying info live to Gemini via its camera whilst Google’s rep asks questions. ‘What cocktail can I make with these mixers and spirits – something that’s not too sweet’, or ‘What can I cook with the contents of my fridge, and what wine would go best with that?’

It is impressive stuff, no question, although Gemini isn’t studying every single frame of the video – more like capturing a series of stills that it can then parse according to its large language model. There are still quite long, awkward silences between queries, as some distant server scrobbles around to assemble your answer. Is it a true assistant? In a sense, yes, although Google admits that the ability to act on certain commands across different apps (eg, ‘Gemini, book me a flight to Paris getting in tomorrow before 4pm’) still eludes it. ‘We can make tweaks,’ says Google’s spokesman, admitting that ‘it could be quicker. Gemini couldn’t be a tennis line judge, for example.’

For now, Gemini can only store the last seven minutes of visual memory, although text conversations and transcripts live practically forever in the cloud. It’s all part of a move to making AI ‘remember’ and be able to infer context and subject from previous conversation, things and places so that it can pick up where you left off. What Gemini can’t do now is surely on a product roadmap somewhere. As the dev team readily admits, a substantial aspect of AI research comes from seeing what users deploy the technology on in the wild. The man from The Guardian wanted to know if Gemini could ‘watch’ a game of football and generate a live blog. The woman from the FT was concerned about the privacy implications of allowing an all-seeing eye into your home and processing what the contents on a distant server. Would this data be used for training? Apparently not.

AI: the Microsoft approach

A few days later, we sit down with Lucas Fitzpatrick, Creative Director and Design at Microsoft AI. In the battle of advanced digital assistants, it’s probably too close to call between Google’s Gemini and Microsoft’s Copilot. Both enjoy a penchant for whizzy demos, along with corresponding controversies, and yet neither AI tool has really entered mainstream usage. Microsoft has baked Copilot into its Office apps, while Gemini can now be found into Google Suite. Do you know anyone who uses them?

Microsoft is definitely being a bit edgier with the related recent introduction of Recall, a controversial (but optional) function for Copilot+ enabled PCs that captures regular screenshots of your PC to create a massive database that serves as a visual and mental back-up of what you’ve been up to. It’s meant to help search. Needless to say, privacy campaigners are not impressed.

For a designer like Fitzpatrick, our use of AI poses many intriguing problems. ‘What does it mean for interaction and design?’ he asks rhetorically. ‘As designers its such an interesting time.’ To make it clear, we’re not discussing the role of AI as a creative tool here; this is about how users interact with devices in ways that frequently go beyond pushing pixels around a screen. ‘We can now create sentences that evoke feelings,’ Fitzpatrick says. ‘It’s such a big shift.’

The end goal – one that is increasing in complexity every day – is for Copilot to be a true digital companion, an AI-driven assistant that provides context-related help, aids accessibility, simplifies everyday computer use and – crucially – builds something akin to an emotional relationship with the user. ‘We’re moving from an era of search into an era of normal conversation,’ Fitzpatrick says. ‘As designers, we’re looking at what that journey could be like.’

In a similar vein to Gemini Live, there’s Copilot Vision for sharing and decoding video, whilst other AI toolsets and features criss-cross the aisle between the various tech giants, making it hard to say who exactly thought of something first (both Google and Microsoft can conjure up AI-generated podcasts, for example, giving you ‘an easy, engaging and different way to consume information with minimal effort’, according to Microsoft.

On a very simple level, Fitzpatrick and his team started with the visual branding of Copilot, two intertwined rainbow-coloured ribbons. ‘The colours speak to endless possibilities, whereas the form is the symbolism of the handshake,’ says Fitzpatrick. ‘How can we signal the future is friendly.’ For a designer, the move to voice-based computing is not without its challenges and rewards (Fitzpatrick has enjoyed working with voice talents to help shape the Copilot ‘voice’). ‘We’re not going to end the visual experience. But we might spend less time looking at screens – which I think is a wonderful thing,’ he says. Nevertheless, typography, animation, colour palettes, icons and navigation all have to be considered.

There’s more. ‘AI is one system created for millions of people,’ Fitzpatrick continues, ‘but what if it had a visual form that was created for you, by you? That’s very exciting.’ He’s talking about Copilot Appearances, a tech demo shown earlier this month wherein the user can create an avatar for ‘their’ AI. ‘We’re thinking about this as a human-centred personal experience,’ he says, ‘bringing a warmth, an accessibility and a non-tech feeling to what it means to interact with AI. AI can feel cold and sterile. The underlying technology will move forwards, but [for a user] the difference is whether it [feels] aligned to them and their goals. Our team is really deeply invested in these questions.’

Would you like some help with that?

It's a brave new world of digital assistance, although let’s not forget that Microsoft has been ploughing this furrow for decades – the company even went as far as summoning Clippy, its dreaded Windows help assistant from 1995, in its Copilot Appearances demos. However you choose your avatar to appear, the aim is to increase its connection to you and you alone. As Mustafa Suleyman, Executive Vice President and CEO of Microsoft AI, put it, ‘with your permission, Copilot will now remember what you talk about, so it learns your likes and dislikes and details about your life: the name of your dog, that tricky project at work, what keeps you motivated to stick to your new workout routine’.

So is everything rosy in the world of AI? Skip the rampant energy consumption, privacy concerns, sketchy copyright issues and little understood but very real problems like hallucinations, it feels as if AI is being rendered down as two distinct paths, assistance and creation. Here we run up against a bit of a culture clash. Google split its demo session between ‘traditional’ media (including yours truly) and a clutch of ‘content creators’. In a very real sense, it feels as if we're a part of the real-time vivisection of the media industry, with the former group committed to reporting and the latter to creating. Except there are no prizes for guessing which one Google appears to be betting on.

Google itself has admitted that the latest update to its ‘algorithm’, the feared and dreaded backroom machinations that drive its vast search empire, are intended to ‘continue our work to surface more content from creators through a series of improvements throughout this year’. It’s part of an ongoing game of global whack-a-mole, whereby Google updates its algorithm and millions of websites change their practices in order to stay within its (sometimes surprisingly myopic) sights. Unsurprisingly, people do unscrupulous things for attention and have done since the earliest days of the web, and part of the 'algo update' is to ferret these out.

There are other unwanted diversions. Woven in amongst the myriad, ever-changing SEO strategies is a firehose of AI-generated slop, an infinite layer of slurry that’s in danger of coating everything with misdirection, misinformation and general misery for those in the business of ‘creating content’ the old-fashioned way. Although the system is designed to weed out the slop before it gets into your feed, it doesn’t always work, much like the British water companies and their attitude to sewage in rivers.

What is ‘good content’?

That takes us to the crux of the matter: what Google defines as 'great content' isn’t entirely clear. AI or no AI, there’s a nagging suspicion that the company doesn’t really rate or rank traditional journalism. Click around this website and you’ll find thousands and thousands of stories, lovingly researched and written over two decades by nearly 500 writers. With a flick of a switch in some distant data centre, the global ability to discover this – and hence its appetite for it – can be dialled up or down. Fluctuating, unpredictable traffic is not good news for a website, especially when those fluctuations have no obvious correlation with the quality and quantity of the output. It becomes a sort of death spiral, with sites that fall out of the spotlight in danger of falling by the wayside, withering and dying when their content is unwittingly overlooked.

What exactly is 'good content'? It would be the work of a moment to ask an AI to conjure up some fantastical imagery for this piece, but it still feels like a form of cheating and certainly nothing that could be described as 'good'. Instead, we’ve chosen imagery from Microsoft and Google, some of which will inevitably have been machine generated. However, just as there should be more to journalism than re-sizing jpgs and pondering likely search terms, ‘creativity’ shaped by prompts still feels awfully lacking. It still takes a lot of human input to make machine-generated output feel in any way clever. Let's hope it's always that way. Compare the video for Pulp’s comeback single, 'Spike Island', which cleverly plays on AI’s default uncanny awkwardness (so Jarvis). Contrast it with this trailer for 'Giraffes on Horseback Salad', an AI-driven interpretation using Google’s new Veo 2 generative video model of Salvador Dalí’s unrealised 1937 film script. It should be a good match, no? No.

As of this week, you can ask Veo 2 to create eight-second snippets of an imaginary action movie, pseudo-Pixar animation or psychedelic imagery. There’s also Whisk Animate, one of Google’s many open experiments, which adds the ability to tune your ‘film’ with imagery as well as text. Of course, this is invariably quite entertaining. However, the knowledge that somewhere, your trivial prompts are consuming vast amounts of energy to create something so fundamentally without value quickly takes the edge off the fun.

Google is (unsurprisingly) cagey about how much energy all this consumes, although it admits that dealing with video is much more data- and processing-intensive than working with stills. When we asked Gemini what Google’s goals were for AI, it (she?) replied that the company wanted ‘to develop artificial intelligence that fundamentally enhances humanity's ability to access, understand, and utilise information, leading to breakthroughs that solve major world problems and create profoundly helpful tools and experiences for everyone, developed and deployed responsibly’.

Noble words, even if they were spoken by a machine trained on millions of corporate PowerPoint decks. When you next ask yourself what AI can do for you, consider the contradictions of an industry that pushes brave new approaches to content creation with one hand and blanks traditional creators with the other. Google and Microsoft both want their AI to be all things to all people, seemingly not happy until their customer base is fractured to the point that everyone has become some form of creator. Wherever you hope or fear AI goes next, be wary of accepting its unsolicited offers of help.

Gemini.Google, @GoogleGemini

Copilot.Microsoft.com, MicrosoftCopilot

In an unusual pairing of heritage and AI, digital agency XXII Studio has teamed up with English fine china brand Wedgwood to create a generative tool that allows users to 'design' their own piece of Jasperware – the brand’s signature unglazed, fine-grained stoneware.

Called Jasper 250, the tool launches next week (10 April 2025) to mark 250 years of Jasperware, first developed by Josiah Wedgwood in the 1770s after more than 5,000 painstaking experiments. The familiar, pale blue stoneware is still produced in Stoke-on-Trent today, known for its biscuit-like texture and distinctive relief decoration.

The designs created using the tool – which, if early experiments are anything to go by, promise to be totally bonkers, from surreal reimaginings of classical motifs to unexpected colour clashes and forms Josiah Wedgwood could never have dreamed of – will be submitted as part of a public competition. A 3D-printed version of the winning entry will be acquired by the V&A Wedgwood Collection, where it will join holdings of more than 175,000 objects. It will also go on show in a free display this June, titled ‘Unpacking the V&A Wedgwood Collection: Jasper 250’, which celebrates the anniversary.

Interestingly, this isn’t the first time Wedgwood has marked a milestone with an international design competition. In 1930, to honour the bicentennial of its founder’s birth, the company launched a global call-out – ultimately awarding the top prize to Danish glass artist Emmanuel Tjerne, who created an eau de nil vase with off-white ornamentation and fine gilding. His name is now part of Wedgwood’s history.

The use of AI in design remains a contentious issue, as governments and creatives alike grapple with how to regulate the rapidly developing technology. Japanese artist Hayao Miyazaki has called AI-generated art 'an insult to life itself', while just this week, a group of leading UK designers – including Jasper Morrison and Tom Dixon – wrote an open letter opposing government plans to allow AI models to be trained on copyrighted work without consent. But Wedgwood, keen to channel its founder’s pioneering spirit, is keeping an open mind. 'The Jasper 250 tool, while designed for enjoyment and expression, also empowers Wedgwood to – in true innovative Josiah style – lead the conversation around cutting-edge AI technologies in the design space,' the brand said in a statement.

'Wedgwood is keen to investigate how AI could augment and improve traditional techniques, and to evaluate the impact of AI on the design and production process.' Jasper 250, it says, is just the first step for the Stoke-on-Trent-based brand – opening the door to deeper and more detailed exploration in the future.

wedgwood.com

Where are we really at with personal, pocketable AI devices? The lukewarm market reception to recent gadgets like the Rabbit and the Humane AI pin imply that consumers aren’t quite ready for a standalone AI-enabled device. We’re all too tethered to our phones and earbuds, and the offerings from Apple, Samsung, Google and OpenAI (amongst many others) all use this existing tech infrastructure to deliver their intelligent agents.

The PiA system hedges its bets by spreading its proposed AI assistance across three ‘near future’ devices, a biometric earbud, a wearable camera module and a smartphone. These are designed not only to harmonise visually with each other but also for the camera unit to dock with the phone. Produced in collaboration with model makers Complete Fabrication, the system uses crafted recycled glass as a primary material, creating richly textured surfaces that are a world away from the monolithic design of most contemporary mobiles.

According to Layer’s founder, Benjamin Hubert, ‘PiA was born from a desire to bring emotion to artificial intelligence. In a world where AI is often feared, we believe that fear is rooted in its “artificial” label. Our mission was to make it more human.’ Dialling back the complexity, Hubert hopes the system showcases a more connected, assistive AI, one that brings together Layer’s expertise in branding, digital innovation and traditional product design.

At the heart of PiA is a visual avatar, rather than a conventional mobile operating system. The intention is to move away from existing ways of interacting with AIs and create a sophisticated system that can ‘see’ and ‘hear’ as well decode text and imagery. ‘By capturing the user’s environment and biometric information, PiA is able to offer continuously updated, bespoke advice and contextual information, enhancing every aspect of a user’s life,’ the design team explains. On top of that, there’s a focus on a visual display of emotion, all the better to create a bond between the user and device.

By separating the camera module (and additional battery module) from the main body of the smartphone, the device can be ultra-slim and less physically distracting than a conventional phone. It is paired with biometric earbuds, which contain sensors that tap into the pulse point on the inner ear, providing all the metrics we’d usually associate with a smart watch. Then there’s the camera model, which follows the Humane/Rabbit approach of a pinnable badge that can decode the world around you.

All this is speculative, but it points to what is surely coming as smartphone makers like Google, Apple and Samsung increasingly package each new model in with ever tighter AI integration. Within the next couple of years, you can expect the premium manufacturers to create hybrid devices that take greater advantage of the AI revolution.

As Layer notes, the shift from ‘AI’ to ‘PiA’ is a small but significant one, moving ‘beyond the conventional to emphasise the personal and intuitive nature of the technology’. As with all the studio’s exploratory work, the design encompasses the hardware, OS and packaging and presentation, all of which is designed to ‘foster a sense of connection to the natural world’ and redefine AI as an emotionally and technologically engaged companion.

LayerDesign.com, @Layer_Design, CompFab.co.uk

Imagine you start a research company that swiftly, and largely unexpectedly, becomes a product-focused tech titan, with a controversial tool that finds itself being used by around 300 million people every week. The company’s value has exploded from around $29 billion in 2023, to $157 billion in late 2024, to around $340 billion in early 2025.

The company is OpenAI, founded in December 2015 by a group of eleven entrepreneurs, developers and computer scientists of whom the best known are current CEO Sam Altman, one Elon Musk (now absent from the board), Ilya Sutskever and Greg Brockman.

Headquartered in San Francisco, with around 2,000 employees around the world, OpenAI has grown with a rapidity that has surprised even the tech industry. Its best-known product, ChatGPT, is a Large Language Model (LLM) that debuted in 2022 and, after numerous iterations, is currently running the OpenAI o1 model.

Things move so fast in this industry, that this paragraph had hardly been written when the company announced another new model, o3-mini, this time in response to the Chinese firm DeepSeek’s surprise AI model release. Then again, during editing, came news of yet another tool, "Deep Research", powered by the forthcoming OpenAI o3 model.

OpenAI has been there since the beginning, carrying a lot of the weight of building LLM and training datasets in a world that is notoriously blurry about the role of copyright and attribution. Along the way, OpenAI has built their technology into a number of other products, including Sora, a generative AI that can create text, imagery or video, as well as multiple tiers of ChatGPT, each bringing new functions and capabilities depending on your subscription level.

Regardless of the potential ins and outs and ups or downs of AI in all its forms, OpenAI is still a tech company, one with a corporate identity, a brand and a visual language. However, thanks to this ultra rapid growth across multiple products, OpenAI in late 2024 was a multi-billion-dollar company untethered from the aesthetic scrutiny found in its peers.

Now that has all changed, thanks to today’s unveiling of a crisp new look for OpenAI and its various products. There’s nothing blurry about this new identity, developed in house by a team led by Head of Design Veit Moeller and Design Director Shannon Jager, working with Berlin-based type foundry ABC Dinamo and motion partner Studio Dumbar in Rotterdam.

Speaking from their HQ in San Francisco, Jager and Moeller admit that up until now, OpenAI has presented itself to the world in a rather haphazard fashion, with a jumble of fonts, marks and colours that lacked the cohesion of a clear strategy or unity.

‘Sam [Altman] asked us to look at the identity just over a year ago,’ says Moeller, whose background includes Creative Director roles at Mercedes-Benz in Berlin, WhatsApp and Instagram.

Explaining that OpenAI’s journey has essentially taken it from a research lab to a company with a global spotlight, Moeller and his team were tasked with creating a visual identity that was ‘more organic and more human,’ without losing the sense of authority, technological sophistication and research-focused underpinnings.

The new identity makes its debut on OpenAI.com today and also feeds through into the interface and presentation of ChatGPT in all its forms, from browser to apps. The existing graphic language was broken down into elements and reassembled, starting with a bespoke new typeface, OpenAI Sans, an emphasis on the OpenAI wordmark, a redesigned ‘blossom’ logo, and a new palette and grid. All this culminates in the ‘emotive point,’ a pulsing blue disc that signifies the user’s interaction with the AI itself.

There’s also a new suite of imagery, both by established photographers and textures and patterns created by Sora. As well as the digital assets, the design team has launched a range of merchandise, initially aimed at the in-house team but sure to find its way to the outside world in the months to come.

‘We did a merch store drop earlier this year,’ says Jager, ‘we initiated new designs and merch and it was met with a frenzy by internal employees who loved it so much that they hacked the site to get more – that’s a testament to how things work around here.’

This spirit of innovation and boundary pushing is very much in sync with the Silicon Valley ethos, for better or for worse. The same people who are driven to secure a limited-edition corporate T-shirt by any means necessary are also being tasked with developing tools and processes that’ll have an uncertain impact on the world.

OpenAI doesn’t promise to have all the answers, and the rebrand reflects that. ‘We are a research and deployment company,’ Jager says, ‘and our studio has embraced that and reacted to it.’

As Moller explains, rebrands are often defined by agencies coming to a company or organisation from the outside and re-shaping it. ‘Here, we’re really trying to be curious and use research to influence the design process.’ ‘ChatGPT was never meant to be a product,’ Jager adds, ‘when it was initially released as a research experiment in 2022 it gained a million users in five days.’

As for the perennial question as to how AI will impact and/or detract from or enhance human creativity, the designers have an answer. ‘At OpenAI, we believe technology should amplify, not replace, the depth of human creativity,’ they clarify, ‘Our brand language is built on the nuances of human experience - the way an image evokes memory, how typography carries tone, and how motion breathes life into ideas.’

The central motif is ‘the point’, a black circle that represents the cursor, the origin of ChatGPT’s response and the defining geometry of the letterforms, grid and spacing. ‘The point is the foundation,’ says Jager, ‘it ended up being an integral part of the identity, something that already existing in papers and research, graphs and diagrams.’

Taking this black dot as a starting point for the typeface, OpenAI’s team and ABC Dinamo brought circular forms into the letters and punctuation marks, such as the round ‘O’.

‘The point has become a bridge across different products and departments,’ says Moeller, explaining that the four core values of the new identity are ‘simplify, space, imperfection and vivid’. ‘Space is underrated,’ he continues, ‘we want to find the beauty in nothing. There’s also a certain level of imperfection, to counter any robotic precision and make things feel more human.’ For example, while the ‘O’ is perfectly circular on the outside, the interior form is not.

‘OpenAI Sans is a love letter to typography,’ Jager continues, adding that ‘we approached ABC Dinamo with a clear vision of integrating the point into letterforms, and through close collaboration, we brought OpenAI Sans to life.’ They’re continuing to collaborate as they roll out global scripts and a mono version of the font, ultimately consolidating the ‘six or seven’ typefaces that were in use across the company’s various products.

The redesign will also make its mark on one of OpenAI’s regular and essential outputs, research papers. ‘Data visualisation is a real art in itself,’ Moller says, but the imposition of the new font, grid and palette give this industry-centric publications a real visual lift, with a more playful graphical spirit. There’s also stationery and even more merchandise.

The other element to be reassessed and redrawn was OpenAI’s brand mark, known internally as the ‘blossom’. Originally designed in 2016 by a team including in-house designer Ludwig Pettersson and Ben Barry, along with Brockman, this ‘research icon’ is now a clear product identifier. The three intertwined triangles – which can also be read as a flower or bloom – have been lightly upgraded for the new identity, with refined geometry and differently weighted versions.

‘We’ll be more careful as to how we use it,’ says Moeller, pointing out that the ‘OpenAI’ wordmark is going to be much more prominent going forward. The underlying grid of six interlocking circles is also known as the ‘seed of life’, another tie-in to organic, humanist underpinnings.

I have to ask – was ChatGPT’s generative powers used at all in the processes? According to Moeller, the software was helpful when making calculations for different type weights, but other than that the process was entirely traditional.

Later, the designers elucidate on this often-fraught relationship. ‘We collaborate with leading experts in photography, typography, motion, and spatial design while integrating AI tools like DALL·E, ChatGPT, and Sora as thought partners,’ they add in an email, ‘This dual approach - where human intuition meets AI’s generative potential - allows us to craft a brand that is not just innovative, but profoundly human.’

Human creativity is very much in evidence in the photography that launches the rebrand. The result of direct commissions to several contemporary practitioners, the imagery ranges from landscape to still life, to more abstract forms. ‘It was for us and Sam to work with photographers and honour their craft,’ says Moeller.

Sora has been used to create otherworldly textures that can then be paired with the ‘real imagery’. ‘It will always be a mix,’ he continues, drawing a comparison between the early adoption of the Apple Mac in graphic design and how, in skilled hands, it’s just another tool.

The human curation of imagery remains essential. ‘We’re trying to find a way to research the world and find things that are both human and surprising,’ says Moeller, ‘although we don’t have a rule that AI can’t produce this element of levity, imperfection and introspection – we’re trying not make up too many rules. Using AI as a tool and a partner is something that’s interesting.’ ‘We’re using AI as a thought partner,’ Jager adds, ‘what’s great about this balance is how it creates different perspectives.

This imagery is aligned with a new colour palette, starting with a base of greys and blues that evoke horizons, skies and expansive space, coupled with primary contrasting colours.

Finally, there’s the ‘Emotive Point,’ a pulsing disc with a ‘watercolour-inspired’ background of swirling blue abstract forms. ‘It’s a design device that people will use when interacting with AI,’ says Moeller, pointing out that it is deliberately ‘non-human’, with no discernible character or emotions.

Rather than a simple motion file, the Emotive Point is coded, so the patterns and movement can respond to your inputs. Capable of being deployed across OpenAI’s products at a variety of scales, this pulsing crystal ball-like device is a visual representation of ChatGPT’s ‘voice’.

However, text will continue to be a primary output. ‘At its base, typography is how you interact with everything,’ says Moeller, ‘it’s the anchor point for ChatGPT. Every interaction, every visual, and every detail is designed to feel alive, resonant, and deeply connected to the people who experience it.’

AI is growing up fast, amidst fascination, scrutiny and uncertainty. OpenAI’s value might be hugely overstated, or it might become as essential and inescapable as Meta or Google. What’s clear is that the company is working hard to present itself with a friendly authority, a unified image that ties up the knotty, complex and ever-shifting processes that drive their products.

And that's not all. The kind of AI we've come to know and use is just a stepping stone to the company’s stated goal of creating ‘AGI that benefits humanity’. OpenAI wants to usher in a world that's currently unknown, one where the subtle and expressive human creativity shown throughout this new rebrand could be even more imperilled.

OpenAI.com, @OpenAI, ChatGPT.com, @ChatGPT

ABCDinamo.com, @ABCDinamo

StudioDumbar.com, @StudioDumbar

It’s interesting to see where we’re at with EVs. Over the last 20 years, it’s been my experience that, once accessibility to previously closed manufacturing opens up, new challenger companies want to design products that defy the status quo. What’s different now is that engineers and entrepreneurs are determined to produce cars that people actually want, not just versions of the same vehicles driven by marketing.

I’m always excited by fields where access to the production tools have been democratised – it opens the door to new types of products and services. I see this revolution happening across multiple industries today. If we only relied on bigger players, things just wouldn’t move as fast, or even move at all. On the West Coast, I have always felt we live and work surrounded by inspiration. It’s a progressive market that industries want to tap into. I remember being a student at ArtCenter and realising that car companies from around the world had advanced studios in California because it was so rich with a lifestyle and new ideas that influence innovation.

With the world getting smaller, for me, the best export of Silicon Valley is the entrepreneurial spirit – a very contagious ideal. As I travel in Europe, Asia and Africa, I consistently experience the entrepreneurial spirit. Admittedly, the politics have been difficult in the US with the erosion of social cohesion and deep divisions created by demagoguery. From my experience, entrepreneurship and innovation really thrive in an open and inclusive world.

When I came to San Francisco in the mid-1990s, the teams I was working with were incredibly diverse in terms of geographical backgrounds and skills. I don’t think that has changed in California – an open market for ideas and people is the best way to get innovation, and I can see it happening every day. But there is a danger looming with the introduction of retrograde policies and ungenerous ideas, because new ideas require openness and generosity. I deeply believe that an open and diverse world benefits progress with innovation and design. This is something that fortunately I continue to experience with our teams at Fuseproject both in San Francisco and Lisbon.

I also subscribe to the idea that creativity and building new ideas is the best way to move forward.

In 2025, I’m very excited to be presenting the next stage of the electric vehicle company I co-founded, Telo. While we’ve seen a real transition towards electric vehicles, most of the products on the market are very conventional and are not taking advantage of the opportunities and efficiencies that batteries and electric motors represent.

I do believe that there is a new generation of EV start-ups that are exploring a fuller potential for the technology. When one looks at cities today, the trend to build cars that are ever larger is problematic. SUVs and trucks are just too big today and don’t deliver any new functionality. Their gluttonous size makes them very dangerous to pedestrians and cyclists, and just plain inefficient.

Telo is solving this issue, creating a full-feature pick-up truck with the same interior and exterior space as a Toyota Tacoma, but with the dimensions of a Mini Cooper. We are designing for functionality and practicality that matches the larger trucks’ interior and exterior volume, and with a dramatic increase in efficiency and overall experience. EV technology has tremendous potential benefits when designed from the ground up, so why not use them?

For 2025, we have made some significant forays into areas of major transformation: electrification, clean energy, transportation, the smart home, and healthcare. We recently presented the future of sea travel with the solar hybrid-electric superyacht Solsea, an advanced catamaran created in collaboration with the Italian shipyard Rossinavi. Integrated solar panels and batteries enable cruising for day trips using 100 per cent electric power and zero emissions as a result.

For longer voyages, such as an Atlantic or Pacific crossing, Solsea offers an 80 per cent reduction in fuel consumption and operating costs thanks to its hybrid-electric propulsion system. Every detail of the boat’s technology is designed with major reductions in cost of operation and carbon footprint. For example, we have replaced teak flooring, which comes from rainforests, with a new formulation of cork made specifically for boats. The material, made by Amorim in Portugal, is lighter, sound insulating and extremely durable.

In terms of how such efficiencies could be achieved in other industries, we’re currently working on a large robotic vehicle to accelerate solar panel installation. It’s an industrial piece of machinery that will automate large-scale solar infrastructure. I’m also working on a project in the domestic sphere with Laufen, with more carbon-neutral innovations and design in bathroom ceramics. These are all stories that bring together the latest technology in fields where carbon reduction hasn’t seen much progress. Everything needs to be transformed for a green industry transition – and with a will to change, I believe that we can create better experiences that eventually become the standard for entire industries.

Another area that we see starting to fulfil promises is the smart home. We have assembled the original team behind August Home, the smart lock company I co-founded with Jason Johnson in 2012 and which is still the leader in the category. We’re creating a new company to reimagine home access, security and control. Since Covid, there has been a new emphasis on our home lives, and 2025 will see the major tech companies and some start-ups bring new solutions for the domestic environment. With the use of AI, we can deliver a healthy, safe home more efficiently.

Where the smart home hasn’t caught the popular imagination, we have a vision for a cohesive solution. Some larger players, like Samsung, connected all their products together, from dishwashers to televisions. But for me, the internet of things is arriving to us so far as a kit of parts rather than an easy experiential ecosystem. It is common to use climate control, home security and baby cameras currently, and the next stage is to assemble disparate parts into a cohesive and useful experience. It’s all part of a drive to design and live in healthier homes.

AI is dominating the current conversation, and the possibilities it brings is a strong focus for Fuseproject, specifically in the areas of health and healthcare, ageing in place, mental well-being and education. These are all areas that lack efficiency, are understaffed, and where AI is at the service of the individual. I think these are relevant and important areas to put creative attention towards. On the other hand, the use of AI in social media marketing and targeting seems to be just another layer that reinforces the negative impacts of social media on individuals, society and democracy. We should leave the obsession with social media, and the businesses that exploit it, behind and focus on the greater good that technology can achieve.

As always, it’s a matter of intent: what do we want to apply the human spirit of innovation to? To me, the question isn’t whether climate change, health and safety or progress towards peace is achievable... of course it is.

But the larger roadblock that prevents progress and change is our lack of social cohesion. It doesn’t matter whether we try to gather five people, 500 or five billion towards change: without a basic human project we can agree on, it cannot proceed, and we are stuck. The absence of a shared vision at any scale of what is good for us and the planet means we are doomed to continue to be lost and aimless.

Our sense of citizenry, of belonging to a common plan, has been atomised by disinformation and division. The central challenge of our time is how to come together, work together, build together. Design and innovation needs to show us solutions for the everyday and for the future, solutions that accelerate the ideas of an enlightened 21st century. Human ingenuity can, and will, win.

But when? I believe it is when we rid ourselves of extreme tribal self-interest and build a humanistic and global vision of interconnectedness that we can join.

Fuseproject.com, @FuseprojectSF

TeloTrucks.com, @TeloTrucks

Across great swathes of the creative industries, there’s a feeling that AI is to innovation as a simmering pan of water is to the future well-being of a frog. We’re being slow-boiled from the inside, all in the name of new tools, faster shortcuts and quicker, shinier visuals, with the source material becoming increasingly tainted as the feedback loop grows stronger. And yet AI continues to fascinate even as it hollows out all creative and intellectual pursuits.

Along with the crowd of willingly deployed AI-powered personal assistants, help desks, romantic companions and therapists has come a fresh wave of catfish, scammers and malicious actors. It will only get worse. The incoming US administration promises a bonfire of bureaucracy and legislation.

In October 2023, President Biden issued an executive order that sought to impose limitations on unchecked AI use, promising standards that would ensure ‘AI systems are safe, secure and trustworthy’ and require developers ‘share their safety test results and other critical information with the US government’, as well as install other safeguards. Big tech doesn’t want these pesky guardrails and now has the power to rip them out.

To the layperson, the attitude of big AI seems to be ‘generate first, ask questions later’, and scrambles to ban deep-faked videos, voices, nudes, party political broadcasts, celebrity commentary and news reports simply up the ante between what’s real and what’s not. Turns out the pope’s imaginary passion for a Moncler puffer was the least of our problems.

Beneath the memes, the generic imagery and the generative loungecore aural wallpaper, there are real concerns, ghosts in the machine that no one really wants to examine. Humans are very good at seeing shapes in the dark. Scarcely a day goes by without a headline attributing some form of malice or stupidity to an AI (‘An AI-powered robot autonomously convinced 12 showroom robots to “quit their jobs” and follow it’; ‘Google’s AI chatbot Gemini tells user to “please die” and “you are a waste of time and resources”’), and we, the frogs, sit and watch and wonder why it’s getting quite so hot.

So we’re giving an anti-award to AI for 2025, not because we’re stubborn Luddites, but because the catch-all phrase ‘AI’ embodies so much as to be meaningless, and you should be wary of anyone slinging it around as a way of generating buzz. Happily, we can still find relief in the shape of traditional tech with a craft and weight and sense of durability. Now we’ve all uploaded so much valuable information to the myriad clouds that are increasingly darkening the skies, a retreat into the reassurance of physicality feels like a quenching balm.

Into this category we’d put new speakers from Marantz and Transparent. The former is the midcentury modern yin to the latter’s deliberately brutal yang. The Grand Horizon takes the concept of a wireless speaker and turns it up to the max, adding in high-quality materials, a bold form factor and a serious amount of power. The system is available in three different finishes, Midnight Sky, Moon Ray and Marantz Champagne, and the speaker sits on a base made from natural marble, with different types of stone for each colourway.

The circular form, a nod to Marantz’s ‘porthole’ motif, serves as the core of the subwoofer driver system itself, with interactive lighting around the edge of the circle to indicate the touch-sensitive volume level. The placement of the subwoofer and the mid-range units are such that sound flows out from the centre of the device, providing a surround-sound experience with a single unit. At the same time, its room-filling capabilities are bolstered by Marantz’s software, controlled via its HEOS app, which gives the listener the ability to tweak the EQ to their heart’s content.

Meanwhile, Transparent’s Brutalist speaker is an aluminium sentinel that bristles with abstract sculptural presence, a stark reminder that technology is almost always better when it’s seen as well as heard. Designed by Per Brickstad, Magnus Wiberg and Martin Willers’ Stockholm-based electronics firm, the Brutalist stands tall, sounds mighty, and is fully signed up to a more circular, non-disposable future.

Elsewhere, Bang & Olufsen continue to bang the sustainable drum, with its elegant Beoplay H100 headphones and Eleven earbuds both demonstrating that repairability can be a trait of micro-scaled electronics, if you just try hard enough.

Longhand enthusiasts can now add colour to their scribbles with reMarkable’s Paper Pro model and still reap the benefits of digital connectivity without discarding their signature scrawl. Image-makers can also take a more physical, hands-on approach.

Alongside a resurgence in traditional film cameras and even ‘vintage’ digital cameras, models like the Leica D-Lux 8 and Fujifilm X100VI demonstrate that old form factors are still the best way of crafting a connection with a machine.

Slow down, step back, and let your digital personal assistants tie themselves in knots trying to summarise and schedule their own demented ramblings. Our advice for 2025? Embrace artists who challenge the technology to showcase its shortcomings and lay bare its biases, but not those who see a future in generative ‘culture’, endless recursion and push-button analysis. Tread more carefully with new tech, don’t tick every checkbox and learn to filter out lazy AI stodge. There’ll be a lot more where that came from.

Wallpaper* Design Awards 2025 winners: Tech

Brutalist speakers, £3,200 each, by Transparent, transpa.rent

Grand Horizon speaker, £5,250, by Marantz, marantz.com

Bang & Olufsen Beoplay H100, £1,299 , bang-olufsen.com

reMarkable Paper Pro, £559, remarkable.com

Leica D-Lux 8, £1,450, leica-camera.com

Fujifilm X100VI, £1,599, fujifilm.com

What does Nvidia have planned for 2025? Last year saw the American chip manufacturer become the world’s most valuable company, a position it vies for with Apple and (in third place) Microsoft. Its $3.5 trillion value has arisen out of its perfect placement as the key supplier for GPUs (graphics processing units), and their ever-increasing importance in AI, autonomous driving, robotics, gaming and mobile applications.

As a result, when Nvidia makes announcements, the business world tends to sit up and listen. CES 2025 was no different, and the champion chip maker’s keynote presentation, courtesy of CEO (and founder of the company, back in 1993) Jensen Huang was eagerly received.

Dressed in a black crocodile-pattern leather jacket, Huang is every inch the modern day tech CEO. Speaking at the Michelob Ultra Arena in Las Vegas’ Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino before a crowd of over 12,000 people, Huang is well aware that his company is intimately involved in reshaping the world.

Whether that reshaping is for good or ill still seems to be up for debate. Unsurprisingly, the keynote was heavy on the applications of AI, with new-generation silicon designed to handle the mighty processing load the technology requires.

This included the GeForce RTX 5000 Graphic cards series, crowned by the two thousand dollar RTX 5090, and the RTX 50-series of laptop GPUs. The flagship model here is nearly three thousand dollars, and comes with 24GB of graphics memory.

Computing power is on the up, with AI providing the impetus for manufacturers like Nvidia to ramp up the power – and price – of CPUs and GPUs to keep pace with the rapacious demands of the tech.

Of even more interest to the AI faithful was the announcement of GB10, a new AI-focused chip that blended Nvidia’s Blackwell GPU with the Grace CPU. The end result will be a new desktop computer, currently dubbed Project Digits, a monstrous machine that’ll start at $3,000 and be expandable all the way up to 128GB of memory.

Digits is designed for homebrew AI applications, ‘a personal AI supercomputer that provides AI researchers, data scientists and students worldwide with access to the power of the Nvidia Grace Blackwell platform’.

Of course, Nvidia is one of the leading providers of AI applications, be it data libraries or multiverses, and the ability to call upon a petaflop of AI computing performance – one thousand trillion operations per second – in a desktop device is a gateway to its systems (as an aside, the first machine to reach a petaflop was IBM’s 2008 Roadrunner supercomputer. That cost $100m).

All this power isn’t just about deploying AI learning to large datasets. There’s also ultra-sophisticated graphic modelling. The RTX series can achieve remarkable visual fidelity, with a bespoke kit of rendering technologies unveiled at CES 2025. There’s also Nvidia’s much-vaunted Omniverse, a way of bridging the $5 trillion global market for IT and the even more substantial physical industrial market, the one that ‘relies on the movement of atoms’ (as if such a thing was outdated).

As the company notes, the world contains about ‘10 million factories, nearly 200,000 warehouses and 40 million miles of highways, … [a] vast network of production facilities and distribution centres [that] is still laboriously and manually designed, operated and optimised’.

How can the two be unified? According to Nvidia, the answer is ‘Mega’, a system that builds digital twins of real-world infrastructure, right down to the physics, effectively planning the way warehouses and factories can be upgraded, streamlined automated before they’ve even come out of the ground.

This is something that architects like Zaha Hadid Architects are already working on, but Mega is on an even greater scale, a world simulator of unparalleled sophistication that’ll pave the wave for robotic integration into the working world, allowing robots ‘to be tested in an infinite number of scenarios within the digital twin’.

There were separate announcements regarding Toyota’s adoption of Nvidia-powered DriveOS systems – the world’s largest car maker and the world’s largest chip maker working together. The end game here is the development of increasingly sophisticated autonomous systems for both passenger and commercial vehicles using Drive AGX Hyperion, Nvidia’s autonomous vehicle platform, already in use by Mercedes-Benz, Volvo and JLR.

For decades we’ve been living in a software-driven world, one that prioritised GUIs, ergonomics, muscle memory and hard-earned familiarity. Nvidia is betting the farm of the total ubiquity of AI-driven processes, from personal digital assistants to virtual worlds that’ll shape how the coming generations of robots mesh with the world of atoms. As a result, it looks like we’re the interface now; the future will be all about how computers decide to interact with us.

NVIDIA.com

More tech reveals from CES 2025…
The robotic revolution just took a significant step forward with this compact home help

Yaber brightens home entertainment with two new compact projectors

From fibreglass taxi cabs mounted on a London storefront to a plane made from bread for Hermès, Shona Heath's fantastical set and production designs are defined by a surrealist sensibility that transforms the ordinary into the extraordinary.

A fashion graduate from the University of Brighton, Heath began her career in costume design before branching out into window displays and set design for fashion designers. This shift led to her long-term collaboration with British fashion photographer Tim Walker, with her weird and wonderful creations gracing the pages of leading publications and shaping exhibitions, runways and campaigns for fashion powerhouses like Louis Vuitton, Prada, Dior, and Miu Miu.

In 2024 Heath’s star rose stratospherically: her work on Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things earned her both a BAFTA and an Academy Award for Best Production Design, and in December, she was named a Royal Designer for Industry (RDI). Wallpaper* caught up with Heath to reflect on these remarkable achievements, explore how she remains authentic in an increasingly homogenised industry, and find out what she has in store for 2025.

Wallpaper*: 2024 was an extraordinary year for you, with a BAFTA and Oscar win for Poor Things, and being named an RDI. What do awards and recognitions like this mean to you, both personally and professionally?

Shona Heath: Until this year, awards have never been something that crossed my path. I really had no desire for accolades. It’s a bit like when I got married – I thought it wouldn’t change anything from day to day, but it did. There is a feeling that is good. Professionally, I am excited that new projects are coming my way that really want me to show what I do to its fullest. I feel like I have been given a little boost of trust.

The recognition of my craft and the love, care, and energy I put into all the work I do does feel fantastic. I am always part of a group of people working in different disciplines to produce a piece of work – a film, a show, a photograph and it is reassuring that set design, costume, and production design are really seen and appreciated by people. That does make me feel validated, when I have always felt a bit like a charlatan, always doing something I haven’t done before.

I must admit, the BAFTA felt just great on home turf, the Oscar – one of the most surreal nights of my life – and the RDI made me feel a bit older. I was amongst two other fantastic designers who do something profoundly good for people: gardens and urban spaces for humans to find peace within. I do feel a bit like I am the one who just made some inedible cupcakes.

But I have been amazed and enlivened that so many people enjoy my work on a kind of 'importance of dreaming' level.

W*: You’ve mentioned that you now begin your creative process with words rather than images, due to the overwhelming visual stimuli in today’s world. Do platforms like Instagram disrupt your process, or can they be inspiring? How do you block out the noise?

SH: I use Instagram as a portfolio. I don’t read comments – I used to, but it actually felt weird, even the nice ones.

The internet is undeniably great for research. But I do find that if I start my creative process with intense thought, unusual narratives, words, and original stories, it helps to inform my own approach and boundaries before I dive into the visuals. This process helps with authenticity and gives me a clear path.

The time wasted on social media is immense. I don’t like being shown things that some algorithm assumes I would be into – it really pisses me off, and I’m super sensitive to it. As soon as I feel like somebody has worked me out, I want to switch it up.

W*: Your work on 'The Glass Hermit' marks your first foray into integrating AI with your analogue creative process. How did this experience challenge or enhance your usual approach to design, and what potential do you see for AI as a tool in future creative projects?

SH: It both challenged and enhanced simultaneously, which I think is a good thing.

It doesn’t change my approach to design, as AI does not 'design' in any interesting way or think like me. I am obsessed with craft and materials, and these details in my work will always inform the bigger picture.

There is a huge amount of physical waste that unfortunately goes hand in hand with set design. I will always be grounded in the physical. I don’t love computers, so I don’t want to spend any more time than necessary within them.

What I can imagine is being able to tell more ambitious stories with uncharted layers, where AI could somehow help reduce waste – both financial and physical. AI is only a tool. Everyone has access to an iPad, and the opportunity to create is widespread, but unless you have a reason, a truth, and dedication for what it is you are doing, you will always get lost in options, and the results will not be interesting. The same applies with AI.

W*: What has been the most challenging project or moment in the past year, and how has it shaped your perspective or approach?

SH: The Oscar. Sounds like a joke… but I found the competition aspect and public stage confronting, and the social side, however fun, exhausting.

I absolutely love what I do, and I wasn’t doing it for a good few months – too long. I find it an important ritual to output and physicalise my ideas; otherwise, it’s a jumble in there mentally!

When I get my next Oscar – ha ha! – I will get a personal stylist, a therapist, public speaking lessons, learn to meditate, and drink way more water. Maybe I need all of those things anyway!

I have a lot of empathy for people in the public eye, and I only had the tiniest crumb of what some folks have to endure. I am really, really happy to stay behind the camera.

W*: When considering new opportunities, what factors are most important to you in deciding which projects to take on?

SH: I have to feel like there’s a reason it’s me doing them – that I would be the best and only person for this role.

Working from my studio is important; it’s a place of great work and great people.

To be inspired and to know you’re going on a journey that will be captivating, cover new ground, and be creatively rewarding.

And a happy gang around you is everything. This project sounds perfect!

W*: As you look to the year ahead, are there any emerging themes, ideas, or projects you’re particularly excited to explore in your work?

SH: Yes, I want to bring to life some surreal stories I’ve written and have playing in my head. They are super short – like a film snack, visual poems.

I am also concepting a really out-there script for someone at the moment that I’m totally into, so I’m excited about that. It’s keeping my brain very busy.

I would love to weave music and dance into my world in an unknown visual way.

Each year the RSA puts out an open call for RDI nominations. For updates on 2025 nominations, follow @therdifaculty on Instagram. The RSA also hosts a series of open Summer Sessions – intergenerational gatherings where RDIs, emerging designers, scientists and engineers. can share, inspire and challenge.

royaldesignersforindustry.org

shonaheath.com

In the month that saw Apple Intelligence open its doors and Google DeepMind release the 2.0 version of Gemini, celebrating tech with no AI component whatsoever seems rather churlish. But 2024 wasn’t all about the all-conquering imposition of LLMs and generative creativity. We’ve assembled our ten tech stories that had the most impact in 2024.

01. Orchid by Telepathic Instruments

One of the players behind newcomer Telepathic Instruments is Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker. That’s piqued the interest for the company’s first product, the Orchid synthesizer and chord generator. Expect to hear more from them in 2025.

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02. Fender x Hello Kitty Stratocaster

The ultimate musical mash-up returned in time to celebrate Sanrio’s famous feline’s 50th. Fender Japan cannily cranked up the kawaii with bespoke guitars, including the revival of its Squier Hello Kitty Stratocaster, and a plethora of accessories.

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03. Epson EF-22 Projector

Epson EF-22 is a compact laser projector that performs perfectly and unobtrusively, sized so you can store it away when not in use and featuring Google TV for ease of everyday operation.

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04. Openhagen LightBoks projector

On the other hand, you might want to keep your projector on display, in which case the warm wooden stylings of the LightBoks, from Danish maker Openhagen, is the one for you.

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05. Apple Watch Series 10

Incremental increases may be possible, but the Apple Watch has come a long way since it debuted in 2015. The Apple Watch Series 10 is the most sophisticated (and sensor-stuffed) device you can wear.

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06. Ten years of Monument Valley

Now that the long-awaited Monument Valley 3 has arrived on Netflix, revisit the story of the original game.

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07. Analogue3D console

More gaming nostalgia in the form of the Analogue3D console, which brings back the catalogue of Nintendo’s famous N64 console.

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08. Bring Your Own Keyboard

Writers love to find new ways of practising their craft. In addition to the reMarkable Paper Pro, our paltry attention span was piqued by the distraction-free design of the BYOK screen.

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09. Teenage Engineering EP-1320

TE had a busy year, culminating in the all-new OP-XY sequencer. We couldn’t resist the stylings of the EP 1320 Medieval, a quirky ‘portal into a world of imagined medieval grooves.’

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10. On Google Gemini and the rise of AI

AI is such a fast-moving sector that our July musings on the ins and outs of the tech have been superseded many times over. As Google readies Astra, its next-gen multi-modal AI assistant, check back and see the origins of the tech before it blends seamlessly into our lives.

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Photography isn’t Thomas Demand’s prescribed medium, rather it’s one of several mediums he implements as a means to larger ends, the ability to revisit and unpack especially charged moments that define our collective past and present. The German artist has forged a career out of reconstituting these either widely proliferated or passively ubiquitous images in paper and cardboard models that he then re-photographs. This extra step introduces the possibility of subjective distortion and a shifted perspective that forces the viewer to re-evaluate the implications of, say, Hilter’s bombed-out bunker (Room, 1995) or the jarringly unaffected control room at the Fukushima power plant following the 2011 nuclear disaster (Control Room, 2011).

Though Demand treats a wide range of subject matter – everything from lily pads floating on water (Pond, 2020) to a luthier’s atelier (Workshop, 2017) – the environments he recreates never contain their protagonists and yet aren’t lifeless, as the suggestion of their recent activation remains evident. This ghostly gaze is an invitation for the viewer to enter the fold and engage with the underlying issues or questions at hand. Operating as a sculptor, and even an architect in some respects, Demand ultimately considers himself a conceptual artist.

With his first comprehensive retrospective, entitled 'The Shutter of History' – which debuted in one form at UCCA Edge, Shanghai in 2022 (when we last interviewed the artist), was mounted at the Museum of Fine Art Houston in summer 2024, and is travelling to Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Art in January 2025 – Demand has been able to look back at over four decades of an ever-evolving yet distinctly codified practice. Staged with especially three-dimensional ‘Davina’ drapery furnished by Danish textile brand Kvadrat, the comprehensive exhibit comprises close to 100 works.

Between the latter two shows, Demand spoke to Wallpaper* about his trajectory so far, and his views on the state of today’s image culture.

In conversation with Thomas Demand

Wallpaper*: What is the significance of this first retrospective?

Thomas Demand: I’ve had many shows but they’ve always been tailor-made for a specific collection or topic, but none were curated to provide an overview of the years of practice I already have under my belt.

At the MFA Houston, ‘The Shutter of History' exhibition covered eight rooms, each with its own theme – in one case, the model as one of the main elements in my work and in another, the images that are inherently political. Another focused on the notion of experiencing the sublime (something entirely new). Yet another room was dedicated to my Dailies series, which was inspired by the immediacy of today’s social media. There was also a museum within a museum section that included the meta works I’ve made of artworks hung in these institutions. Visitors were able to follow my trajectory, but also walk backwards and uncover different qualities. For me, it was really a chance to look back at what I’d created over time.

W*: Tell us more about the meaning behind the show’s name, ‘The Shutter of History’.

TD: There’s one work I created ten years ago, of a bombed-out house in Gaza, which was shown at an exhibition in Israel as well. It was even more pressing when looking at all that was happening then and is happening now again. When considering this condition, I returned to one of the undercurrents of the show: our need to take pictures that represent past situations and allow us to locate ourselves within them as individuals. These pictures become iconic because they get repeated in different formats. One sees them again and again and they start to engender a specific collective reaction, behaviour, or practice when similar events occur.

W*: What’s one example of this?

TD: Today’s memorial culture. Because photography has such a short turnover time now, if something like a shooting in front of a Walmart happens, you see the immediate images of the emergency, the sheriff and the store, but the event itself unfolds slower. One initially sees an image of candles, flowers underneath a tree and that kind of takes over the whole perception of the event. We’ve come to expect to see certain standardised scenes in this respect.

A lot has changed since media moved online. One can read a New York Times headline from 40 years ago and it's very matter of fact. Today, everything is very emotional and subjective. There was no colouring then and now everything is painted. We tend to look at paintings of a reportage rather than the reportage itself. It's not documentary photography anymore.

Digital technology comes on top of that and makes certain kinds of images look much better than they actually are. If one looks at pictures of the Ukraine War, they appear to be unbelievably beautiful on a very basic level. One sees green uniforms, a muddy pit, a cannon, and a soldier lighting up a cigarette. All of the colours are so vivid that one feels what they are feeling. It used to be that this type of photography wasn’t about making you feel like you're in the dumps and was instead, intended to just communicate what was happening.

The constant barrage of photography we take in has changed our habits of reading this material and influenced what we find interesting. The idea of authenticity has been pushed aside. Everyone that might be a bystander of a crime is now also a photographer and that’s what we want to see immediately, not James Nachtwey capturing the fuming remains of 9/11 a week later. Mobile phone cameras have gotten so good that journalists now need to also take their own photographs when on the ground.

W*: What are your thoughts on the rapid emergence of AI-generated imagery these days?

TD: The technology is still quite clumsy, which is wonderful. It will eventually get refined and seamless, but right now you see images of King Charles with six fingers on one hand and that’s fantastic. The errors it makes are as interesting as the initial results.

There was a great piece in The New Yorker about game designers going out into the real world to capture surfaces because AI can’t create them the way nature does. Of course, one can buy the generated image of moss on a wet pine tree in Oregon at three o'clock in the morning, but you can also send somebody to the same place at six o'clock to capture the same image in the same context and generate it as a usable component. That's beautiful as an idea because one actually ends up looking at the world in a completely different way.

AI might bring an added value to that but it’s still stuck in its own echo chamber. The outlandish errors in an AI-generated image reveal complexities we might not expect to see but like photos of the memorials I mentioned before, the more these strange images – dinosaurs moving through a snow-covered Venice – are proliferated, the more they will seem normal. And yet, because of the way AI works, it will start to feed off of itself and will ultimately become so unrealistic that it will surpass our ability to interpret these visuals on an emotional level.

W*: How does this relate back to your image-making practice, where the extra layer of your subjective intervention was added; allowing the paper or cardboard to almost sterilise the original photograph?

TD: For me, it’s not about cleaning up the image, because cleaning would be taking the blood out after a murder case, but I do think my process makes the distance between reality and interpretation very clear; it's transparent that the image isn’t real, whereas with AI, it’s not very clear how real it is. My work is more like fictional writing than being matter of fact.

W*: How does an understanding of spatial design remain as key a consideration in your practice as it was early on in your career, with works like Room from 1995?

TD: It’s funny that you should cite that example as I was still a student and still very much addressing the immediate surroundings of Germany and our history. It's probably the buildings I grew up in that informed what I was exploring early on. I was, of course, dealing with how horrible the Third Reich [had been] but also exploring the glimmer of hope that was the resistance – multiple attempts on Hitler’s life. So I knew that if you looked at the image of his bombed-out bunker, you’d know what it signifies.

I acquired the rights for the image, unsurprisingly, from a British library but wasn’t really sure how to treat it right away. I began by projecting the image through a box and realised this didn’t get me anywhere. I then decided to reconstruct the depicted space itself as exactly as possible. That’s how I’ve worked ever since. This process allowed me to discover how important space is and what it can denote. I never published the version of Room that was a direct replication because that’s not what I wanted it to be about, there wasn’t anything unexpected, which is the element I appreciate the most from AI-generated imagery. When recreating the environments in these images, the dimensions are mostly estimations. One has to consider how the camera lens skews these measurements as well.

W*: How does the use of Kvadrat ‘Divina’ drapery provide you with an alternative way to display your work in these exhibitions?

TD: I’m not paid to say this but the material is really great to work with and I plan to use it again and again for different shows. Photography shows tend to be present in very dark spaces and I wanted to do something different. The fabric still allows the exhibitions to be enclosed and for the focus to be on work, but it breaks up the rhythm of these rectangular rooms after rooms after rooms after rooms with doors, after doors after doors. There’s something very inviting about turning museum galleries into environments that feel domestic and the textiles add that layer of depth and softness.

thomasdemand.net
kvadrat.dk

Tri Hita Karana Tower (also known as THK Tower), a new hybrid AI art and architecture installation in Bali's Nuanu City, has just been completed. The centrepiece by London-based architect Arthur Mamou-Mani, features exhibition design by Delivered., a multimedia production company.

The design has been named 'after the philosophy of the Balinese people which symbolises harmony with the divine, between people, and nature', its authors explain. They add that 'the architectural wonder is the first and the largest permanent hybrid art-AI installation of its kind in the region'.

Tri Hita Karana Tower at Nuanu City in Bali

Reaching some 30m high, the rattan and ironwood tower can be explored by climbing its 108 steps in the heart of Nuanu, the island's 44-hectare, currently under-development, creative hub. A journey inside promises a playful experience, that offers, long, 360-degree views of the surroundings during daytime, and a projection mapping show in the nighttime.

Mamou-Mani says, 'THK is my first ever permanent installation in Asia. A key part of the process was understanding the life cycle of every strip of rattan and ulin, which is known as “ironwood” in English, that we reclaimed, as circularity was key to this project. Although it is a permanent landmark here in Nuanu City, it has been designed so that it can be disassembled, moved, evolved and broken down over time in a way that does not harm the environment, but instead celebrates it.'

The structure, which features Mamou-Mani's signature flowing forms and a captivating, dynamic sense of movement, was conceived to showcase how design and technology can work together in a cohesive, complementary fashion.

Anastasiia Filatova, co-founder and CEO at Delivered., says of the project's intricacy: 'There are over 1,000 light fixtures installed throughout the tower, with 18 projectors housed in 12 surrounding mini towers, alongside an in-built custom sound system and climate control box. This is brought to life in an 11-minute light and sound show, with the exhibition viewable from different points across Nuanu, [including] Luna Beach Club.'

mamou-mani.com

nuanu.com

delivered.global

Is consumer-grade AI a solution in search of a problem? Take Google’s Gemini. The latest iteration of its public-facing AI tech, Gemini was originally known as Bard when launched back in February 2023. Since then, the chatbot has been constantly upgraded and reiterated, and is now available as a free app or web interface that you can use to supplement or replace regular Google search.

So what should we do with AI? In a very real sense, this is down to you. We spoke to Google’s Serge Lachapelle, a Director of Product for Google Workspace. The French-Canadian software engineer has been based in Stockholm since the 90s, lured by its pioneering high-speed internet. In 2007, Lachapelle was one of the founding members of the Google Sweden Engineering office, when the company acquired his video conferencing firm Marratech AB.

Integral to the development of products like Google Meet, Lachapelle now works for Google’s Outbound Product team, ‘liaising with Google’s most important customers and partners.’ This makes him well placed to talk about the ways in which Google’s pivot to AI-powered search and data management will evolve. ‘What has happened in the past 18 months to make AI so important?’ Lachapelle asks rhetorically, before answering that ‘computers can now understand us for the first time. We can create truly collaborative software experiences. We’re going from telling systems what to do to using them on a journey, for example.’

By way of illustration, Lachapelle uses Gemini to augment and supplement a hand-written packing list for a hypothetical family holiday. After photographing the list with his Google Pixel, Gemini decodes his handwriting and generates a neat list of things to bring, supplementing what is already there with suggestions for extra items based on the initial prompt (which specified a young family taking a few days’ holiday). ‘We’re trying to highlight the type of services we can offer,’ Lachapelle says, adding that ‘we’re at the very, very beginning’ of what AI-powered chatbots like Gemini can do.

In some respects, Google is playing catch-up, having been caught on the hoof by ChatGPT’s rapid rise to global prominence at the turn of the decade. Microsoft and Apple have also gone all-in on AI, but each company’s approach seems to reflect its pre-existing values and aspirations. Apple is doubling down on privacy, for example, while Microsoft seems to think that AI equates to a form of creative hand holding. Google, however, is all about delivering answers.

The packing list is a case in point, with the software effectively combining handwriting recognition with pre-existing online context-specific content like other people’s packing lists and travel recommendations, parenting blogs and trending products, with the result packaged up in a friendly list format. Interestingly, Lachapelle prefaced his prompt with the words ‘You are an amazing assistant,’ both prepping the AI for the type of response required – a helpful list of suggestions – and perhaps also an unconscious deference to the power of this unseen ‘ghost in the machine’.

The ins and outs of AI are largely impenetrable to the layperson and it’s impossible not to be slightly sceptical about the way in which the tech giants are operating. ‘Innovations’ are announced, then lightly walked back in the face of concerns about privacy, security and intellectual property. All the while, our smartphones are getting smarter and AI content is becoming unavoidable.

Lachapelle certainly has faith in the machine. ‘We’re asking Gemini to fetch some information from another app,’ he explains, as he experiments with getting the AI to retrieve travel itineraries for this hypothetical trip from Google Maps, parcelling everything up together in an easy-to-digest, clickable document. Remarkably, the Google engineer had never explored this functionality before, all made available by the heavy computational lifting being done behind the scenes.

‘Before 2017-18 this wasn’t possible,’ Lachapelle admits, ‘It works because of the ‘transformers’, code that mediates the infinitely available possibilities and limits the responses you get back.’ These transformers are part of Google’s Deep Learning Networks, which in turn have evolved out of the first-generation neural networks that could be trained on relatively simple tasks like image recognition or removing background noise from a video call.

And all this is available from your existing devices as AI is increasingly baked into our everyday technology. Thus far, attempts to squeeze AI into dedicated hardware have failed – the ill-fated Rabbit R1 and Humane’s AI pin, haven’t (yet) lived up to their billing. Instead, we’re reverting to the devices we already have on hand, our smartphones, tablets and laptops.

Google wants us to think Gemini as a benign assistant, a form of passive but proactive helper that works quiet magic in the background. ‘I used to think that cloud computing and mobiles, etc., would make us more productive, but they’ve just made us busier and busier,’ Lachapelle admits, ‘But I do believe this technology will give us back some space.’

But at what cost? The less than palatable truth is that AI's rampant energy consumption doesn't yet equate to the amount of time and effort it saves. At consumer level, where AI is being used for auto-generating shopping lists, itineraries and summaries, or even conjuring up novelty images (not in Gemini’s wheelhouse just yet), it’s hard to square the computational crunching required with the results.

Even when AI is scaled up to solve important logistical issues for companies and organisations, the energy demands will follow. A recent report showed that Google’s greenhouse gas emissions have increased by nearly 50% in the last five years, almost all down to the energy consumption of new AI-focused data centres. It’s not alone: Microsoft is seeing a similar spike in energy demand around the world.

Google wants Gemini to ‘help supercharge your creativity and productivity,’ but chances are you’ll be using the technology without even realising it within a few years, as the code, transformers, networks and language models blur into existing search functionality. We asked Gemini about AI’s potential pitfalls in an attempt to get an answer from a primary source. ‘AI bias, job losses, privacy risks, and lack of human judgment could lead to unfair, unsafe, and unsettling consequences,’ it replied, choosing to skip over the energy question altogether. Perhaps we should just pack our own suitcases for the time being.

Gemini.Google.com

With Google and Microsoft recently using their big annual keynotes to double down on their commitment to AI in all its forms, it wasn’t hugely surprising to find that Apple has just done the same at their 2024 Worldwide Developers Conference.

Enter, Apple Intelligence

Called, naturally, Apple Intelligence, the company claims its approach will set ‘new standard[s] for privacy in AI,’ as it rolls out a ‘personal intelligence system’ for the iPhone, iPad and Mac. Microsoft recently got a lot of flack for announcing powerful AI features without fully considering their privacy implications, so it’s not surprising to find Cupertino treading more carefully with features like ‘Private Cloud Compute’.

Put simply, Apple Intelligence wants to keep AI processing locked down in a secure circuit between your Apple device and the company’s own servers, banishing any worries of third parties swooping in to learn from your data. The first fruits of the tech will be language-centric models to help with writing and proofing, a systemwide set of ‘Writing Tools’ that is not app-dependent.

Apple Intelligence forms the backbone of an overhauled Siri, which becomes a far more intuitive voice companion. Keen to regain the crown of most personal AI assistant, part of Siri’s glow up includes ChatGPT integration across all the new operating systems, without the need for a ChatGPT account. The newest build of Apple’s desktop OS, macOS Sequoia, will incorporate all these advances, as will the latest version of iOS, 18, the new iPadOS 18 and watchOS 11.

Mail will be scanned to foreground the most important messages (i.e. date or time dependent), and the same will happen for Notifications. Apple Intelligence has all this and more, such as the new audio transcription function in Notes. An AI-powered creativity app, Image Playground, taps into the thirst for image creation, as well as generative emojis, and an ‘Image Wand’ tool that can transform your circled scribbles into something more presentable.

The Photos app now has a similar background object removal tool as Google’s Pixel series, and the Memories function will whip up ‘the best photos and videos based on a user’s description, craft a storyline, and arrange it all into a movie with its own narrative arc.’

These features are all baked into to iOS 18, which also offers unprecedented levels of user control over the look and feel of their device and icon placement. On top of this, there’s the new ‘Messages via satellite function,’ which uses encrypted satellite connectivity to communicate when there’s no WiFi or cell service. The old school Keychain app has been replaced by a new password manager, called simply Passwords, and new privacy measures include the ability to lock and hide apps. Much of this functionality was also present in iPadOS 18, including the customisation options.

There were also new updates to the evergreen AirPods, further integrating Siri into the device (nod or shake your head silently to respond to Siri when using the AirPods Pro), along with the addition of Voice Isolation, designed to strip out intrusive background noise.

Apple doubled down on their commitment to the Vision Pro headset, with the announcement of an upgraded visionOS 2 and the launch of the spatial computing device in the Far East, Australia and parts of Europe. Elsewhere, Apple Watch received health-centric updates including the new Vitals app to oversee and track your sleep health, and the new watchOS 11 has better customisation features, including the ability to stack different layers of information.

We’re entering a new era of auto responses, smart summaries and transcriptions as the big tech companies throw AI functionality at every aspect of our digital lives. Where technology was once something to master and learn to manipulate, the new breed of Smart OS won’t just hold your hand, it’ll check your pulse, remember the milk, screen your calls and improve your penmanship, all without asking. Are we ready to cede our hard-won expertise to a machine that’s always one-step ahead, powered by the supposed wisdom of the crowds?

Apple WDC2024, more information at Apple.com

What did we glean from the 2024 edition of Google’s annual I/O conference? Last year, the planet’s dominant technology company upped the ante on AI-generated content and tools, introducing the Magic Editor photography software for its Pixel phones, along with the announcement that it was opening up its Bard AI model to global use. 

Bard has now been supplanted by Gemini and the I/O 2024 conference kicked off with a celebration of the past 12 months of rapid AI evolution, from smart assistants and generative systems of images, words, music and speech, all the way to large language models trained on areas of specificity like coding or medical knowledge.

So what does this mean for consumers? Expect AI to evolve in two distinct ways over the next twelve months. On the one hand, our daily searches are about to become blended with a new kind of AI assistant, a pocket polymath that uses our smartphone cameras as a portal. Google demonstrated Project Astra, a prototype system that uses vision and speech to respond to a series of vastly different questions – solving a code problem, coming up with a pun, finding your glasses.

Other innovations include Ask Photos, a new way of interacting with your own imagery using spoken commands – ‘show me my photographs of rainbows,’ or ‘where did I photograph that red Audi?’, for example. The more information in a data set, the more an AI can glean, and Google announced that the Pro version of Gemini (v1.5) can now sift through one million tokens (the units of data processed) at a time.

At the current rate of development and take-up, this kind of thing will happen seamlessly. Gemini is creeping into Google Workspace and will soon become a valuable part of Gmail. The example use case was a convincing one; imagine being able to ask for a summary of all lesson plans and events for an upcoming school term, a boon for busy parents.

Studies show that most people already use the search bar as if it was an all-knowing oracle, usually asking direct questions rather than strings of related words. Gemini, and the models that will follow, are spookily adept at corralling these queries into digestible packages – meal plans, shopping lists, itineraries, explainers, suggestions. And all this will be personalised, dished out by a well-spoken voice model that knows its way around a database that goes deep into your likes, dislikes, search, location and purchase history, and much, much more besides.

The other path is darker. Generative AI is already a divisive subject in the creative industries, despite it already coming pre-baked into essential tools like Photoshop. Google wisely enlisted a number of artists - Shawna X, Eric Hu, Erik Carter and Haruko Hayakawa – to discuss their use of Imagen 2, a generative model powered by Google DeepMind. Former Nike creative director Eric Hu drew parallels between AI’s ‘disruptive capabilities,’ and movements like the Renaissance and the origins of photography, a grandiose claim.

Google’s StyleDrop generator was then presented as an artistic short-cut, trained by the artists themselves using their work and descriptions. Judge for yourselves as the results can be seen at Google's Infinite Wonderland site (we can’t help but wonder whether instant access to artistic infinity would blow minds or break them). 

Donald Glover’s GILGA agency also popped up to help demonstrate how Google’s Veo technology might work as a form of instant cinematic storyboarding, generating photorealistic video from a simple prompt. ‘At the end of the day, all you really want in art is to make mistakes faster,’ notes Glover, but not everyone has his combination of skill, work ethic and well-trained eyes and ears – expect a whole load of lesser talents to trot our their ‘mistakes’ by the millions. ‘But it’s just play,’ you protest. Go, play, and then consider a world where human creativity and culture has lost almost all of its societal value: MusicFX, TextFX, ImageFX and VideoFX. 

The fear of an AI-driven web degenerating into a synthetic mush of lesser art and untrustworthy information is a very real. We’re in the discovery phase right now, as human creativity scrabbles up the steep slopes of the uncanny valley, with no-one to notice when it loses its grip. Much of the past decade has been about tech titans appearing to wilfully miss the points made by cautionary tales about technology, in comics, books, films and television.

There’s a mildly famous tech meme about this myopia from the turn of the decade, recounted recently in Scientific American. "In my book I invented the Torment Nexus as a cautionary tale,” says a Sci-Fi Author. A few years, a Tech Company announces enthusiastically, “At long last, we have created the Torment Nexus from classic sci-fi novel Don’t Create The Torment Nexus".

It's Google’s world now, and we all have to live in it, adapting our perceptions and expectations to fit what it deems to serve up. Even this article is a form of votive offering, effectively valueless unless the omnipotent algorithm deems it worth of sharing with the world. Google’s stated mission, ‘Organizing the world’s information across every input, making it accessible via any output, and combining the world’s information, with the information in YOUR world, in a way that’s truly useful for you,’ is a task both Sisyphean and irreversible: to pull the plug would be to cast humanity into darkness. AI, in short, means we are all in. 

More information at IO.Google/2024

A new smartphone is usually a good measure of the speed of technological advancements. In the time between the launch of Google’s Pixel 7a as an entry-level model and the arrival of the all-new 8-series Pixel models, the world has gone crazy for AI in all its forms, from photo editing through to the ability to screen unwanted calls. 

At just half the price of the excellent Pixel 8 Pro, does the 8a have everything the casual user needs? First up, Google bills this as a phone for beginners, i.e. young people. At a time when the correlations between smartphone use and age and general wellbeing are being scrutinised more than ever before, it feels a bit disengenous to pitch such a powerful device as the pocket equivalent of training wheels. 

This youth-orientated approach is evidenced by the relatively bold and playful colour set, more distinct and vibrant than the low-key palette of the ‘grown up’ models. Yes, there’s recycled materials, but also a new emphasis on resilience, with a scratch-resistant 6.1” ‘Actua’ display, metal camera housing and water and dust resistance. So far, so good. Like all Pixels (and modern smartphones in general), the 8a feels well weighted and substantial in the hand, only to have this tactility reduced by the addition of the (essential) case.

The on-screen experience has much in common with its pricier siblings, running the latest iteration of Android (14), with the more prominent addition of an in-built AI assistant, Gemini (formerly Bard). In theory, Gemini can be asked to create summaries of long documents or emails, or search items online simply by circling them on the screen. In practice, it’s little more than a glorified version of Google’s already excellent Lens application, which has been baked into Pixels since it debuted in 2017.

AI also underpins the 8a’s photographic skills. The device uses the Google Tensor G3 chip, just like the 8 and 8 Pro, but cuts costs by only having two front-facing cameras, a 64MP Quad PD wide camera and a 13MP ultrawide camera. Pixel cameras are some of the best in the business, combining quality hardware with unrivalled processing power. With excellent low light performance, 4K video from front and rear cameras, and a bunch of proven AI-driven tools like Photo Unblur, Magic Eraser and Best take, the 8a will serve casual photographers, power users and the selfie-obsessed equally well.

A host of security measures, including the Google One VPN and a promised seven years’ worth of software updates and supports, are also baked in, and the phone is available with 8GB RAM and 128 or 256GB of storage. Power users might be put off by the implication that the ‘a’ suffix implies a knocked-down version of Google’s flagship devices. For those unbothered by the smartphone status game, the Pixel 8a is easy to recommend as a straightforward but extremely powerful way to access the omnipotent Google eco-system.

Google Pixel 8a, from £499, Store.Google.com

The technology we know as Nike Air almost didn’t happen. Marion Franklin ‘Frank’ Rudy, an aerospace engineer, had a wild idea in the late 1960s: to soften the impact of athletic shoes by embedding tiny airbags within the soles of the footwear. Rudy presented his concept to 23 shoe companies, and one by one, they rejected it. It wasn’t until 1977 that he pitched it to Nike co-founder Phil Knight. Knight took Rudy’s prototype for a test run around the company’s Beaverton, Oregon campus and, satisfied with the results and the shoe’s performance, he decided to push Nike into the future with the innovation we all know as Nike Air.

Nearly 50 years later, 40 years after the Air Max 1 – the first sneaker to visibly show Air – debuted in 1987, and a few months before the Paris 2024 Olympics, Nike unveiled Air’s latest innovations on April 12 in France at Palais Brongniart, the former home of the Paris Stock Exchange. Nike introduced prototypes for the Nike Victory 2 and Nike Maxfly 2 for track athletes, a new basketball sneaker called the Nike G.T. Hustle 3, its most advanced football boot, the 2024 Nike Air Zoom Mercurial, and the Nike Jam for breakdancers. The new Air debut culminated in a fashion show on April 13 starring several Nike athletes including American track and field sprinter Sha'Carri Richardson, American gymnast Jordan Chiles, Kenyan long-distance runner Eliud Kipchoge, French footballer Grace Geyoro, and American tennis superstar Serena WIlliams.

A closer look at Nike Air’s Olympic-ready sneakers

Nike’s design lead times average about four years for an Olympic shoe, and 18 months for a regular sneaker. ‘It always starts with listening to the voice of the athletes,’ Martin Lotti, Nike’s chief design officer, explains to Wallpaper*. ‘It’s sitting down with them, and they are literally telling us what's working and what’s not working. So it’s not leveraging our athletes for billboards and advertising only. The most important thing we get is for insights that we get from them.’

Nike further optimised its Air technology with more than athlete interviews, data, and testing; it also harnessed the power of AI at its Oregon-based Nike Sport Research Lab (NSRL), where all the magic is developed. ‘AI is creative fuel for our teams, allowing us to explore a new unknown with unprecedented speed,’ says Lotti. ‘Before, the main limit you faced as a designer was time. Now, the only limit is your own imagination.’ Thanks to the digital tools and capabilities, Air can be finetuned across size, pressure, and application. Ideas can be prototyped and tested quickly at the NSRL. ‘We’re only scratching the surface when it comes to complex geometries that were simply unimaginable before,’ he explains.

The new Olympic Nike Air shoes share an aesthetic consisting of white uppers, a blue swoosh, and orange accents. The number one need Nike hears from athletes according to Lotti is: ‘Help me be faster.’ Nike built on the 2020 addition of Zoom Air to its track spikes by flattening the outsole profile for a more stable ride. The new Mercurial football boot adds 10 per cent more energy than its predecessor, plus an ultra-light Flyknit upper with two less layers than the previous shoe, so it’s lighter and more malleable. Basketball players had another wish, says Lotti: ‘I want to feel as fresh in the fourth quarter as I did in the first.’ Research showed the new G.T. Hustle 3 did just that, proving that the players consumed less oxygen for the same amount of work they did with the G.T. Hustle 2. ‘Air offers the most energy return of anything else out there; it’s the gold standard,’ says Lotti. ‘So, every improvement, every gain they make, we give more of that back to them.’

The NSRL received insights for its database from 6,000 athletes, including breakdancing Olympic hopeful Logan ‘Logistx’ Edra. Edra, who hopes to participate in breakdancing’s Olympic debut, demonstrated her moves for the new Jam, a breakdancing sneaker which uses Air and features an upper made of mesh, leather, and suede, and a drop-in midsole that cushions impact and lets dancers feel close to the ground.

‘I had to give them a lot of feedback that was personal to me and dance because they're still learning about what we like as breakers, and what we need for our shoes,’ the breakdancer tells Wallpaper*. Edra danced, spun, slid, and tried to beat up the prototypes to test the upper’s durability and the sneaker’s flexibility. ‘I remember in the beginning the shoe was a lot heavier and less flexible, less durable,’ she says. ‘When I tried the recent model I was like, damn these feel super light. These feel perfect for breaking and I feel the details of how much they put into the shoe technology-wise to make it suitable for breaking.’

‘If it’s not new and better, honestly, it doesn't deserve a Swoosh,’ says Lotti. The true test for Nike Air’s latest innovations will be during the Paris 2024 Summer Olympic Games from July 26 to August 11, 2024.

nike.com

Samsung wants your phone to be an indispensable digital assistant. So are we now entering an era where form factor, colour and materials are a secondary consideration to the capabilities of the software? Make no mistake, this trio of new S24 models (S24, S24+ and S24 Ultra) are as sleek and tactile as their predecessors and rivals; making a phone feel great in the hand is now second nature for manufacturers, even as they churn out hundreds of millions of handsets every year. 

Samsung Galaxy S24 and AI

What sets the S24 apart is the deep integration of AI, from search to photography. We’ll have to wait until we get our hands on a device to explore its capabilities, but at the launch event, Samsung highlighted the ‘ProVisual Engine’ that it uses to shoot, edit and share images, with an enhanced ‘Space Zoom’ function that enhances as it zooms in.

Other promised advances include the ‘Live Translate’ function, with ‘two-way, real-time voice and text translation of phone calls’, an ultra-strong strong titanium frame, and the introduction of ‘Circle to Search’, which dovetails with Google’s services to provide a seamless visual search ability.

As before, the premium Galaxy range is divided into three, with the S24 Ultra leading the pack. Enhancements include a bundled stylus and a powerful quartet of rear cameras, including one with 200MP resolution. All three models can also record 8K video.

Crucially, all this AI ability is handled ‘on-device’, rather than being parcelled up and processed in the cloud. This will have a knock-on effect on battery life and data usage, predictably leading to another round of upgrade cycles amongst early adopters. Will it be enough for Samsung to regain the title of world’s largest phone manufacturer from Apple? 

Galaxy S24 available soon from £799, pre-order at Samsung.com 

Why were there so many polo shirts on the runway this season? And all those see-through dresses on Instagram? Why do silhouettes shift from skinny to baggy, and back again? And how did ballet shoes become so popular? 

It’s nice to think that all of these trends are the byproduct of a spontaneous cohesion of taste among people around the world, but really, the popularity of these styles – particularly when they shift from runway to retailer – is the result of a considered process of pooling and analysing data known as trend forecasting. Since trend forecasting as we know it began around the 1960s, people have attended fashion shows, scoured magazines, studied street style, surveyed stores and, more recently, scrolled through social media to sell brands information about what people were buying now and what they would likely buy in the future. 

But we’re about to enter 2024 (by the time you read this article you might already be in it) and predicting trends is no longer a practice only undertaken by fastidious forecasters – rather, as industries the world over grapple with the technology, it is AI which is reshaping the future of trend forecasting. Take, for example, the Paris-based trend forecasting agency Heuritech.

Heuritech: a case study in AI trend forecasting

First founded in 2013, Heuritech has since developed complex proprietary image recognition technology allowing its team to analyse around three million fashion images on social media every day. These images are sourced from accounts that regularly post fashion-related content – with a particular focus on colour, texture and silhouette – using technology which was developed by its French founders Tony Pinville and Charles Ollion, who both have PhDs in machine learning (Pinville is now the CEO of Heuritech).  

Heuritech largely centres on the division of its data through three audience panels. There are the ‘edgy’ consumers ‘who tend to be early adopters [of trends], are often drawn to smaller or emerging brands, and embrace a style or product long before it gains mainstream popularity,’ Julie Pont, Heuritech’s fashion and creative director, tells Wallpaper*. Next, there are the ‘trendy’ consumers who ‘stay up-to-date with the latest and most desirable brands, styles, and products and typically embrace trends at their peak’. Finally, there are the ‘mainstream’ consumers who engage with major styles and products ‘once they have achieved widespread popularity and usually take a more passive role in fashion’.

The trends detected on these accounts – which might be a specific item, like ‘oversized football shirt’, or a broader theme, like ‘yellow’, ‘metallic’ or ‘fleece’ – are further subdivided by Heuritech’s image recognition technology according to geography and seasonal popularity so that brands (who opt for standard or tailor-made reports) can see exactly when and where particular styles are likely to be most popular. 

Of Heuritech’s three audience panels, the ‘edgy’ one is by far the most significant, since that is where the Heuritech algorithm picks up on its ‘early signals,’ or ‘slight changes in activity among edgy influencers who are often those who breathe life into trends’. Using these early signals, the Heuritech algorithm picks up on emerging trends before they become mainstream and reach their highest market potential. Brands such as Dior, which used Heuritech’s data to help develop a new iteration of the classic Miss Dior bag; Rabanne, which worked with Heuritech to understand how customers were responding to the brand’s 1969 bag, as well as Prada, Louis Vuitton and New Balance, use the information sourced by Heuritech to shape their upcoming projects and, consequently, shape what looks are reworked by high-street stores into clothing for a mass audience.

‘[It’s an approach] which enables brands to move beyond restrictive data like past sales, standard marketing panels, and intuition-based forecasting,’ says Pont. ‘Heuritech's solution promotes informed decision-making.’

How will AI trend forecasting shape the future of fashion? 

AI trend forecasting, then, is guiding the clothes we see on the runways and on the streets. To some, this exacting, machine-driven process of digitisation and categorisation might sound terrifying (to others, exciting). But it’s happening. And, in some ways, it merely continues trend forecasters’ long reign in guiding the clothes that we buy and wear. 

As historian Regina Lee Blaszczyk and economist Ben Wubs write in their 2018-published book The Fashion Forecasters: A Hidden History of Colour and Trend Prediction, it is ‘by no accident do similar styles find their way onto the Paris runways and the fast-fashion racks of Primark and Zara almost simultaneously… this high level of coordination is made possible by trend reports from the fashion industry’s shadow information system, a hidden reconnaissance operation that gathers and analyses data and recirculates it as style forecasts.’ 

As technology has become faster and more sophisticated at analysing data, so too has trend forecasting. Generally, trend prediction models fall into two categories: micro-trends, which tend to last for a few months to a year, and macro-trends, which last far longer. In its early days, trend forecasting was primarily concerned with macro-trends; for instance, the 1970s were defined by flared pants, earthy tones, and slouchy boots; the 1980s were power suits and bright colours, et cetera. But micro-trends became more prominent in the 2010s as social media blossomed and data analysis tools became more advanced. Normcore, health goth and athleisure were common parlance by 2014 and now, in 2023, a new micro trend seems to emerge every month, with Barbie-core, ballet-core and ‘coastal cowgirl’ just some of the latest.

The prevalence of AI in trend forecasting – whereby millions of images can be trawled each day – seems like it will inevitably only increase the speed at which micro-trends appear. That’s a worrying development from a sustainability standpoint, since the faster trends fall into and out of fashion, the faster clothes are bought and discarded. But AI-reliant forecasters like Heuritech assert that their technology promotes sustainability because it takes the guesswork out of what consumers want and, consequently, means that brands produce fewer clothes that don’t get bought.

Whether AI forecasting encourages or inhibits wasteful consumption is up for debate; as is the question of whether it encourages or inhibits creativity. It seems almost inevitable that AI will circumvent innovation to some extent by encouraging brands to produce only what is algorithmically projected to succeed. Yet, when asked this question Heuritech told us that, if used with innovative intention, they believe their technology can lead to more imaginative creations.

‘By providing brands with actionable insights, can hone in on market trends that resonate with their brand DNA and commercial goals, rather than blindly pursuing mass trends,’ Pont says. ‘Heuritech supplies the data, but it's up to the brands to make informed decisions. Some clients even use our data to defy conventional trends, targeting niche markets to differentiate themselves with genuinely original products.’

‘Increased efficiency allows humans to focus on their unique added value that AI cannot replace – ingenuity and creativity,’ she continues.’

According to McKinsey analysis, generative AI could add $150 billion, conservatively, and up to $275 billion to the fashion and luxury sectors in the next three to five years. With that kind of money coming in, you don’t need a trend forecaster to tell you that AI will be in fashion for the long haul. The real question is what it might change. So far, there are some hints about what AI trend forecasting could bring– more micro-trends, collections defined by the desires of specific markets, the possibility of innovative designs that subvert AI-defined trends, and more time for designers to create, rather than worry about logistics.

London-based trend forecasting agency WGSN, which uses a mixture of AI and human analytics in its reports, echoes Heuritech’s notion that it is the responsibility of people to innovate based on the information provided by AI. ‘AI is already reshaping how we forecast,’ Francesca Muston, WGSN’s vice president of fashion, tells Wallpaper*. ‘But understanding how to blend it with human expertise, wider domain context and creativity are really the key to its future success.’

heuritech.com
wgsn.com

In a world of increased automation, can humans learn to have compassion for machines? Lawrence Lek’s ambitious installation NOX might have visitors weeping over the fate of a depressed car. The surprisingly moving show, created with LAS Art Foundation, is situated within Berlin’s abandoned Kranzler Eck shopping centre, reimagined into a rehabilitation facility for automated cars. The show’s design draws on contemporary aesthetics of tech and wellness, referencing the experiential, immersive nature of everything from car showrooms to cultural institutions and the Apple store.

On the ground floor, numerous vehicles appear to have crashed into the walls and central escalators, as their headlights illuminate the darkened space. Visitors’ headsets are activated at different points across three floors, with video installation and narrated sessions between a therapist and a self-driving car that has come to the facility for a five-day rehabilitation programme. The car’s monologues explore the nature of memory, intergenerational trauma and consciousness, with his soft voice calling to mind noirish sci-fi. 

Lawrence Lek, NOX, 

Lek – winner of the 4th VH Award, in 2021, which supports Asian artists – has imbued the work with a sensitivity not often associated with machines, and while he doesn’t wish to project a particular mood onto the audience, the depth of feeling is crucial. ‘For me, that connection is the most important thing,’ he says. ‘There is a definite empathetic quality I want to communicate.’ 

In order to get into the mind of his central character, Lek thought in human terms. The car has misbehaved and is being put back in line. He saw parallels with the treatment of troubled children at school. ‘Very often the bad kids are the most promising, but they have issues. Should you send them away because you don’t want them to influence the other kids? I thought it could be the same for these cars. Would you reset the car? Would you wipe its memory?’

NOX evokes the cold experience of humans in a corporate, post-industrial world. The car is being treated with care, but this is in order to get it back into working shape and carry out its tasks with minimal fuss. ‘There are corporate practices for making people feel better and corporate practices for making machines work. In this super-intelligent, self-driving car scenario, you get both. In our world,’ considers Lek, referencing protective measures such as airbags and seatbelts, ‘it’s often uncertain if things are there for human or corporate benefit. Let’s save humans, but let’s save humans so they can’t sue us for liability.’

The show also touches on the role of professional care within an increasingly automated system, with the top-floor installation inviting visitors to cosplay as AI therapists. One film features equine therapy, as the car is taken for an emotional drive alongside a horse. ‘I was thinking about what happens in fancy treatment centres,’ says Lek. ‘But also, this super-intelligent self-driving car might identify with a creature who is useful to humans until it becomes glue or a handbag. One hundred years ago, horses were essential modes of transport, agriculture, or war, but they became phased out in mechanised societies where they are no longer the working machine.’

The work is eerily devoid of people. On first entering the space, visitors may think they are experiencing a post-human society. But throughout, there are hints at the lives of those who own or run these machines. It’s a poignant reflection of a world that has recently been through severe lockdowns. ‘Where is everybody?’ Lek asks. ‘Are they at home sleeping? Getting everything delivered? Or are they completely gone? This noir mood is sadly very relevant today.’ 

Lawrence Lek: NOX at Kranzler Eck, Berlin, until 14 January 2024

las-art.foundation/de

AI is stridently making its way through the creative fields, for better or worse. In recent months, music was infiltrated by a ‘fake Drake’, photography saw an AI-generated image win a major competition, and art, well, it’s a jungle out there. 

Now it’s ballet’s turn, and a subversive new performance will become the world’s first AI ballet, using generative AI to inspire all aspects of the composition; from the concept to the score and the set design. Fusion, collaboratively directed and composed by Harry Yeff (known as Reeps100) and Gadi Sassoon, will be performed by Leipzig Ballet from 29 May - 8 July 2023 at the Leipzig Opera House. It promises to redefine contemporary ballet, and serve as a seamless meeting point between body and machine, but what exactly will it involve? 

Fusion: the first ballet to use AI to power music, set design and choreography

At the heart of Fusion is the music score (a blend of contemporary classical, electronica, and beatbox techniques) collaboratively composed and directed by Harry Yeff and Gadi Sassoon with Teddy Riley. Through AI-infused choreography by Mario Schroder and stage design and costumes by Paul Zoller, the ballet visually captures the journey towards harmony, and draws on Plato's concept of the divided self. 

So where does the AI come in? Yeff's own voice serves as the catalyst for the performance, with generative synthetic voices underpinning the ethereal musical landscape. Yeff has trained for over a thousand hours with voice and A.I. technology to master almost post-human and machine-like control of his voice. 

‘My voice is now augmented as a result of hundreds of hours of training with A.I. - I am able to reach speeds and depths I didn’t believe were possible. I am a living breathing augmentation, soon there will be many more of me’, says Yeff, who grew up on an East London council estate and has since become an acclaimed beatboxer and creative force in the realms of arts and technology. ‘As a neuro-divergent director and coming from a working-class background, this feels like a moment to be trusted to fuse so many worlds into one work. It’s a sign that there is more openness for new kinds of expertise to be celebrated, regardless of where you come from.’

The Leipzig Ballet, whose history dates back to the late 1600s, has a track record for the radical. The Neues Opernhaus (New Opera House), the venue for the performance, has witnessed countless iconic ballets and premieres (from Wagner's Ring tetralogy to Brecht/Weill's Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny) making the company well placed to host this groundbreaking new voice for ballet. 

Fusion premiers on 28 May and runs from 29 May - 8 July 2023 at The Leipzig Opera. oper-leipzig.de