Slides presented during the Transform 2023 conference on AI and Design.

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INNOVATION
THROUGH DESIGN
AND AI: A USE CASE
FROM THE INDUSTRY
TRANSFORM 2023 – 27TH OCTOBER 2023, TRIER

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1– BACKGROUND AND MOTIVATION
2– ACTIVITIES
3– FROM IDEAS TO INNOVATION
4– CONCLUSIONS AND TAKEAWAYS
AGENDA

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1—
BACKGROUND AND MOTIVATION

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WHO ARE WE?
BACKGROUND AND MOTIVATION
Digital Product Design (DPD) @ DGI
Giulia Rutigliano
DGI
Elisa Fabbian
DGI
Davide Posillipo
DL&BD
Marcello Villa
DL&BD
We come from two teams of different realities:
Deep Learning & Big Data
Department (DL&BD) @ Alkemy

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OUR EXPERIENCE
TOGETHER
BACKGROUND AND MOTIVATION
DESPITE BEING PART OF THE SAME COMPANY, OUR
TWO TEAMS HAVE VERY DIFFERENT MINDSETS,
SCOPES AND PERSPECTIVES, AS WELL AS
“LANGUAGES”
ONCE WE MET, WE QUICKLY UNDERSTOOD THE
POTENTIAL OF WORKING TOGETHER, AND DECIDED
TO PROPOSE AN INTERNAL INNOVATION PROJECT
TODAY WE WANT TO SHARE OUR JOURNEY SO FAR,
AND SOME LESSONS WE HAVE LEARNED FROM IT

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BOOST INNOVATION IN
ALKEMY THROUGH
RELIABLE
EXPERIMENTATION...
THE NEED

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...BUT MAKING SURE TO
PROMOTE AN INNOVATION
SUSTAINABLE FOR AND
UNDERSTOOD BY THE
EMPLOYEES
THE VISION

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DESIGN
AGAINST A
BLIND
INNOVATION
BACKGROUND AND MOTIVATION
In the AI (and tech) community, innovation is mostly
understood as a destiny: the march of progress will conquer
minds and hearts out of pure necessity.
We think that this is blind innovation: it forces the
introduction of changes that are not addressing actual
needs, or that are not understood nor wanted.
We believe that design can help AI in promoting innovation
that answers actual needs and that respects the desires
of the people that will be affected by it.
TECHNOLOGY
What is feasible?
NEED
What is needed?
DESIRE
What is wanted?

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2—
ACTIVITIES

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BENCHMARK ANALYSIS
ACTIVITIES
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2
INTERNAL PLATFORMS
SAAS PLATFORMS
THE MAIN FOCUS OF THESE PLATFORMS
IS TO OFFER TOOLS TO INCREASE
CONVERSIONS THROUGH TESTING,
PROFILING, AND CUSTOM FUNNEL
CREATION
WE DISCOVERED THAT:
COMPANIES THAT HAVE AIMED FOR AN
IN-HOUSE PLATFORM HAVE ORGANIZED
TRAINING TO CONSOLIDATE A CROSS-
TEAM CULTURE
WE ANALYZED:

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USER INTERVIEWS
ACTIVITIES
EMPATHIZE WITH THE NEEDS OF PEOPLE
IN OUR COMPANY AND IDENTIFY NEW OPPORTUNITIES
ENSURE THAT OUR PROJECT FULLY SUPPORTS THEM BASED ON
REAL NEEDS
MAKE PEOPLE FEEL INVOLVED BY CREATING A SENSE OF BELONGING
AND ACTIVE PARTICIPATION
OUR GOALS:
We interviewed people from different teams within the company and with different seniorities, trying to
identify those with more operational than managerial roles so we could get to the heart of what needs
to be done within the projects.

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KEY LEARNINGS FROM INTERVIEWS
ACTIVITIES
Almost always the
starting point is from
the client database,
rarely are more
exploratory or
assumption-based
avenues taken
The goal is to be
efficient, to develop
models that have the
highest possible
accuracy and that
work over time
The client-side
expectation is that
proposed solutions
should bring positive
results immediately,
with no space
for experimentation.
Retrieving information
(proposals, data,
and use cases) from
other projects can
be time-consuming.
and sometimes
relies on people's
historical memory

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USER PERSONAS
ACTIVITIES
WE CLUSTERED THE DATA
EMERGED FROM
INTERVIEWS BY DIVIDING IT
INTO CATEGORIES OF USERS,
TYPES OF WORK ACTIVITIES
AND TOOLS, THE APPROACH
TO EXPERIMENTATION, GOALS
AND SHARING PRACTICES
THEN WE MERGED THE
INSIGHT IN 4

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WE REFLECTED ON
NEEDS EMERGED
FROM EACH
PERSONAS IN AN
IDEA GENERATION
SESSION ON THE
TOPIC
EXPERIMENTATION
ACTIVITIES
The ideas that emerged, based on
needs and real-world contexts, were
then prioritized and converged on
multiple possible MVP concepts. BRAINSTORM BETWEEN
DGI AND DL&BD TEAMS

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3—
FROM IDEAS TO INNOVATION

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WHAT WE ARE IMPLEMENTING
THANKS TO OUR APPROACH
FROM IDEAS TO INNOVATION
DATA-CENTRIC AI HUB FOR
MACHINE LEARNING
EXPERIMENTATION
#3
TOOL PERFORMANCE
DATA SCIENCE TEAM
FOSTERING CULTURAL
ADOPTION OF
EXPERIMENTATION
#1
R&D
INTERNAL
PROCESSES
CROSS-TEAM
#2
TRANSFORMATIVE
GENERATIVE-AI
TOOL
CROSS-TEAM SCALABLE
AI-BASED REPOSITORY TO MAKE
EASIER THE ACCESS TO INTERNAL
KNOWLEDGE

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NOWADAYS TEAMS
ARE NOT USED TO
EXPERIMENT
DESIGN AND
DELIVER INTERNAL
INITIATIVES TO
PROMOTE AN
EXPERIMENTATION
CULTURE
STARTING POINT SOLUTION
CONCEPT #1
OR THEY DON’T FEEL THEY
CAN ACTUALLY DO IT
DURING PROJECTS

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Compared to the initial idea we had, our effort will be focused on
culture more than tools.
Some initiatives we are creating are:
‣ Interactive technical guidelines for setting up and conducting
experiments
‣ Creation of an «Experimentation Support Team»
‣ Organization of internal events for promoting the experimetation
culture
‣ Organization of external events for helping Alkemy’s clients
adopting an experimentation culture
‣ Definition of thematic educational contents
DESCRIPTION
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ZOOM IN
KPI
CONCEPT #1
Cross-team and cross-unit
TARGET
‣ Number of experiments designed and
conducted for clients
‣ Educational contents delivered
‣ Promotional contents delivered
‣ External events delivered
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4—
CONCLUSIONS AND TAKEAWAYS

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SO, DID IT WORK?
CONCLUSIONS AND TAKEAWAYS
THANKS TO A DESIGN-BASED APPROACH, WE CHANGED OUR MINDS: THE INITIAL,
TECHNICAL IDEA, WAS REFRAMED AND PUT INTO A BROADER CONTEXT
MAKING SURE THAT WE WERE PROPOSING A SOLUTION TO AN ACTUAL
NEED, WE WERE ABLE TO WIN THE STAKEHOLDERS’ INITIAL SKEPTICISM
TWO VERY DIFFERENT TEAMS ARE NOW WORKING TOGETHER (HAVING A
LOT OF FUN!): AI AND DESIGN FOUND A WAY TO TALK TO EACH OTHER
SOME EARLY EVIDENCES:
The project is still on the making, so it is hard to give a final answer. Only time will tell if our initiatives
was the right one for the goals we had and the situation we faced. But, some remarks can already be
made.

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WE LEARNED A LOT!
CONCLUSIONS AND TAKEAWAYS
LISTEN, LISTEN, LISTEN
INNOVATION TAKES TIME
AI SHOULD BE THE LAST MILE
Use design tools to let ideas and
needs emerge
Frame innovation within a
strategic, transformative journey
Development and deployment
should follow initiatives that
prepare people to what will happen

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THANK YOU
ALKEMY — ENABLING EVOLUTION — VIA S. GREGORIO 34 — 20124 MILANO, ITALY — TEL: +39 02 928941 — INFO@ALKEMY.COM
ALKEMY.COM