Traditionally, a brand’s voice and visual identity is predefined and delivered from the top down. Designers will spend days crafting systems that are consistent, distinctive and recognisable, and then documenting them in painstaking detail so they can be applied uniformly. Captured in a BIBLE, no less.
In this world, users receive the brand rather than shape it. They adapt to the tone and presentation the organisation has chosen.
AI-native experiences challenge this pattern. When an AI becomes the user’s primary mode of engagement, the control starts to shift. The voice, the tone and even the way the product presents itself can flex in response to the individual.
For some teams, this opens up a new opportunity: the chance to build dynamic, adaptive relationships with users. But it also introduces tension. If the interface adapts moment by moment, and if the personality of the product can be prompted into unexpected territory, what happens to the carefully curated brand you began with?
In the first post in this series, we explored how AI systems can learn the user rather than the other way around. In this second post, we look at how brands might bend and reshape themselves around the user, and what this could mean for products in the years ahead.
Explore the interactive carousel below, or download Shift 2 as a PDF.
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