A top global design alliance is embracing AI to ‘let designers focus more on empathy and creativity’

The creative industry has an especially tense relationship with AI, which some believe erodes human innovation and critical thinking skills, and threatens jobs. 

Yet, many designers are increasingly warming to the idea of incorporating AI in design, says Cecilia Brenner, the managing director of Design for Good, a global design charity.

AI is “a tool that helps us reduce friction, to let designers focus more on empathy and creativity,” Brenner told Fortune in a Dec. 18 interview. The tech “should serve life, and not the other way around.”

Design for Good was first founded in 2022, with the goal of bringing together the world’s top designers to work towards the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Today, the alliance comprises over 2,000 designers across 30 countries, who come from corporate giants like PepsiCo, Nestle and Microsoft. 

Brenner first joined the Design for Good alliance as a corporate designer with Philips, and later in 2024, was elected as its chief executive. 

Since taking the helm, Brenner has made it her goal to introduce more AI design tools for the alliance’s creatives. In 2025, she onboarded two Silicon Valley AI start-ups, Miro and OpenStudio, as alliance members.

Both companies offer tech expertise and collaboration tools with AI features, Brenner said, adding that she hoped they will help designers work together better across borders and time zones. “[They bring] collaboration tools, which will help us prototype and come up with multiple concepts faster.”

By designers, for designers

Koraldo Kajanaku co-founded OpenStudio in 2023, alongside his sister, Agi Kajanaku.

The idea for the AI startup first took root in 2022. Koraldo was then the senior design lead at U.S. design firm IDEO, and his sister was completing a PhD in AI and computer graphics at Harvard University. While pursuing her degree, Agi dabbled in early experiments in generative AI, creating a custom model for designers, which she let her brother test out.

“I tried it out at IDEO [on] some of the projects that I was working on, and I was moving 100 to 1,000 times faster through work that I used to do in Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. And I said, ‘Okay, there’s something here,’” Koraldo told Fortune in a Dec. 19 interview.

The siblings then hunkered down at their family home over the holidays, and built the first version of OpenStudio.

The platform allows designers to create instant renders, quickly generate moodboards, and visualize concepts using AI prompts. It comes in-built with OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which users can tap on “for inspiration, brainstorming, and feedback”, OpenStudio’s website reads.

Users can also switch to other AI models, including those by Gemini or other custom-made models, Koraldo adds.

When asked if he thinks AI detracts from human creativity, Koraldo said that one can still be very crafty with AI—and that it’s simply a tool which speeds up execution.

“Design is really what happens when technology is inserted into the creative world,” he says. “And I think creativity is intrinsically rewarding, so it’ll be something that we’ll always want to do as humans.”

Koraldo says that he’s optimistic that with AI, even more designers will be born.

“I think we’re going to see billions of designers in the next five to ten years, and a lot of that will be due to technology that allows us to participate closer to the design process—and [easily] go from a concept in our head to final stuff that’s ready to be produced.”

AI for good

With the inclusion of their two new AI-centric alliance members, Brenner says her team will be better equipped for the future.

Every two years, Design for Good chooses a new SDG to tackle. The team chose clean water and sanitation (SDG#6) for its 2022 cycle, and quality education (SDG #4) for its 2024 run. 

In 2026, the alliance is focusing on two SDGs: good health and well-being (SDG#3) and climate action (SDG #13). 

“Adding members to our living network is a healthy way of helping us understand that whatever we create doesn’t [bring about] harm, and instead has a positive outcome on both people and planet,” Brenner says.

And in the case of designing for human and environmental health, AI is especially useful, she adds. 

“AI can be used to predict human health or environmental outcomes before we implement something,” Brenner says. “It can identify [potential] consequences, and test run the scaling of solutions, so we know they won’t damage [humans or the environment].”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com