AI Is Being Used to Design the Cars, Trains and Planes of the Future
By using AI, BMW Designworks can simulate various design options and predict how they will perform. This technology allows them to make more informed decisions and create innovative designs more efficiently. The AI-powered tools help designers explore new possibilities and push the boundaries of creativity. By harnessing the power of artificial intelligence, BMW Designworks can stay ahead of the curve in the automotive industry. This cutting-edge approach enables them to anticipate trends and deliver groundbreaking designs that resonate with consumers.
BMW Designworks and Artificial Intelligence in Transportation Design
BMW Designworks isn't designing the cars, trains, and planes of today. They're designing for tomorrow, with the help of artificial intelligence. The subsidiary of BMW Group has design consulting clients across the transportation industry, not just the BMW family of brands (BMW, Mini, and Rolls-Royce), including Sirius Aviation, Starlux, the Los Angeles Department of Transportation, Konica Minolta, Ionity, Virgin Hyperloop One, and EVA Airways.
Whether it's with BMW Group projects, like the forthcoming Neue Klasse vehicle range, or reimagining the future of air travel, the Designworks team is strategically using AI to improve its approach to transportation design. Paul Ferraiolo, director of strategic foresight and partnering at the BMW Designworks L.A. studio, mentioned, "We're always developing the most cutting-edge tools and working with our team to figure out how we can upscale our team and create new ways of doing things that enable our design process to create a better experience for our client."
AI in the Creative Process
An AI strategist works under Ferraiolo at the company. Their job isn't to classically use AI as most utilize it today. Instead, Designworks is "using AI as part of the creative process to enable more creative exchange, more creative inspiration and work across all of our teams, across interaction design, across automotive design, across industrial design, to create a new process that helps every team and every sort of project and service that we work on."
Because the company is designing mobility solutions for the future, it uses AI to create projected environments where its designs might exist in the real world. Ferraiolo explained, "We really start at the beginning of any project, understanding the customer and looking into the future to create a future vision. And as part of that, we believe in this idea of world building, so understanding the future world and the future user that you want to design for."
Guidelines and Ethics
As part of the design process, many factors are considered. Ferraiolo posited, "What are the different values, attitudes, behaviors that you would want?...We're not using [AI] to design the product, but we are imagining what is that future vision and world. And, how do we tell the story that would allow us to design a better product or service for that future?"
With many projects in the pipeline covered by confidentiality agreements, Ferraiolo can't speak to what AI-influenced design is in the pipeline right now. However, he was able to point out that the company worked with the team at BMW North America to create a video that was assisted by AI, but not purely made with it, for the Neue Klasse X reveal, about a year ago.