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The Future of Product and Service Design Is Now

Updated: Mar 24

We need to be able to see ourselves in the future.

It’s something I’ve heard over and over again from employees facing disruption. It’s also something I’ve felt in my own career. When everything is changing fast, what people need most is a way to picture themselves in the future. To know there’s still a place for their skills, creativity, and leadership.


But imagining that future isn’t enough. We need to design it. Together.


Why Product and Service Design Need to Evolve Now

AI is already changing how we work. It's designing interfaces, running research, making decisions, and delivering services. Emerging technologies like persona bots and agentic AI are starting to take action on behalf of customers and organizations, offering a glimpse into a future where they may shape entire service journeys.


As designers, we’ve always evolved by adapting to new tools, technologies, and expectations. This moment is no different. What we’re designing, and how we’re designing it, continues to change. Growth mindset, curiosity, and a willingness to experiment have never been more important.


The future of product and service design isn’t about tools or technology. It’s about designing ecosystems where AI, humans, and systems work together to deliver seamless experiences that people can trust.


Trust is the most valuable currency we have.

Partnering with AI Is Supercharging Us

I use AI every day in my work. It makes me faster, sharper, and frees me up to focus on the kind of work I’ve always wanted to do: thinking bigger, solving the right problems, and leading meaningful conversations about what comes next.


AI isn’t replacing us. It’s giving us the opportunity to step into more meaningful roles. Roles that demand strategy, ethics, creativity, and leadership.


But we need to be intentional about designing those roles. And I want to show you one way that might look.

What Might the Future Look Like?

I’ve been exploring three possible futures for product and service design teams. Here's a quick take:


  1. The Converged Role: Product, service, engineering, and management merge into a single hybrid role, powered by AI co-pilots.

  2. The Agent Economy: AI agents are both our users and collaborators, requiring us to design experiences that work for machine-to-machine interactions as well as human needs.

  3. The Human-Centered Renaissance: Human-crafted, ethical, and emotionally resonant services become the differentiator in a world fatigued by automation.


After working through these futures, one role consistently stands out as critical for the next era of design: Service Design.

A Glimpse of the Future Role: Service Designer, 2030

This fictional job description is designed to push our thinking about where service design is headed and how organizations can prepare now.


Role: Service Designer, 2030

Reports To: Chief Human-AI Ecosystem Officer

Type: Human (AI-Augmented, Multi-Agent Team Collaboration)


About the Role

As a Service Designer in 2030, you will design, orchestrate, and evolve complex autonomous service ecosystems. These services are delivered by AI agents, co-designed by human and AI teams, and continuously optimized through real-time learning loops.


Your job is to make sure these adaptive services reflect human values, maintain trust and transparency, and support both autonomous machine interactions and human decision-making.


This role is about designing dynamic systems that negotiate, personalize, and act on behalf of customers. You’ll ensure human oversight, ethical standards, and customer agency remain at the center.


What You’ll Do

  • Lead the design and governance of services delivered by autonomous AI agents and AI-human hybrid teams

  • Translate human values, ethics, and intent into AI decision-making frameworks

  • Build and maintain Trust Frameworks to make services transparent, explainable, and governed by dynamic consent

  • Design adaptive services that evolve in real time through continuous AI feedback loops, customer interactions, and persona bot simulations

  • Facilitate Human-AI Co-Design Sprints, working with human stakeholders and AI persona agents to iterate and improve service delivery

  • Design Machine-to-Machine (M2M) service interactions, where AI agents negotiate, transact, and deliver services autonomously on behalf of customers

  • Balance ethical trade-offs between efficiency, personalization, privacy, and fairness

  • Collaborate with data sovereignty, privacy governance, and AI ethics teams to align services with global regulations and evolving societal expectations

  • Identify key human re-entry points in automated service journeys, ensuring meaningful, high-value human interactions happen where they matter most


What You Bring

Leadership & Systems Thinking

  • Proven experience leading human-AI collaboration teams within complex service ecosystems

  • Expertise in trust-building strategies to ensure transparency, explainability, and customer control in AI-powered services

  • The ability to facilitate co-creation workshops with human stakeholders and AI proxies

  • Strong sense-making and storytelling skills to explain complex AI-human service ecosystems

  • Adaptability and a continuous learning mindset

  • Deep understanding of AI ethics, inclusion, and fairness frameworks


Craft Mastery & Technical Fluency

  • Advanced service design and systems orchestration, focused on autonomous and adaptive services

  • Deep understanding of AI/ML decision systems, autonomous AI agents, and negotiation protocols

  • Proficiency in designing Trust Frameworks that include dynamic consent and real-time explainability

  • Familiarity with data sovereignty and decentralized identity systems

  • Experience designing and managing AI-powered service dashboards to monitor decisions, system health, and ethical KPIs

  • Mastery of accessibility and inclusive design principles in AI-human hybrid services

Why This Role Exists

By 2030, services will be autonomous, dynamic, and constantly evolving, shaped by AI agents acting on behalf of customers and businesses. The Service Designer ensures that human values, ethics, and trust stay central. They design services that deliver efficiency, fairness, and inclusion at scale.


They act as the systems leader and trust architect, balancing autonomy with oversight and ensuring services adapt to customer needs, societal expectations, and regulations.


No matter which future plays out, whether it’s the Converged Role, the Agent Economy, or the Human-Centered Renaissance—organizations will need Service Designers who can adapt, lead, and ensure services stay grounded in what customers and humanity need most.

Ready to Design for the Future?

I help leaders and teams rethink roles, develop future-ready skills, and design organizations that can thrive in multiple futures.


That includes designing modern measurement models, like trust frameworks that ensure your AI-powered products and services build lasting credibility and confidence with customers.


If you’re curious about what this could look like for your team, let’s talk.


What Do You Think?

I’d love to hear your thoughts. How do you see service design evolving in your organization? What futures are you preparing for? Are there other roles or industries you'd like to explore next? Share your insights or questions in the comments!


 
 
 
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