Design Leadership Breakfast at Elisava Madrid

Designing for Meaning in the Age of AI

From intelligence to direction

At Elisava Madrid, Juliane, our VP of Strategy, and a small group of design and innovation leaders met for a different kind of exchange. No screens, no decks, just time to think together. The context was clear: acceleration, AI, short-term pressure, and a growing crisis of trust and purpose. The conversation did not start with technology, but with a question:

What is the real role of design today?

Efficiency is not a strategy

Most AI efforts still focus on optimization, faster outputs, lower costs, automated processes. But efficiency alone does not create relevance. The opportunity is not producing more but producing what matters. This means moving from better answers to better questions. As intelligence becomes abundant, the real differentiator is judgment, clear criteria, and direction, in other words, wisdom.

When design becomes execution, value disappears

In many organizations, design remains at the end of the process, reduced to interface and delivery. This is not a creativity issue but a positioning one. Design creates impact when it works upstream: framing problems, aligning stakeholders, guiding decisions, and building shared visions. The question is no longer what design delivers, but when it is involved.

From innovation to introspection

Innovation has long been the default objective. What is emerging now is a need for clarity of purpose, ethical positioning, and long-term relevance. We are surrounded by intelligence, but we lack direction. This brings design back to a fundamental question:

What do we stand for?

Rediscovering the ethical compass

Design has held this role before, from Papanek to the Ulm School, asking how to improve life and create real impact with fewer resources. After decades shaped by techno-optimism, that perspective is being reconsidered. The deeper issue returns:

Who defines meaning, and based on what values?

Education for a world in motion

In a volatile context, learning cannot be static. Education needs to work more like jazz: structured but adaptive, continuous and responsive. It also requires cross-generational exchange, not teaching what we know but learning together what comes next.

A change of agenda

This conversation was not about trends but about positioning. Less focus on technology as an end, more on the frameworks that allow it to create value.

Because the real question is no longer:

What are we able to build?

But:

What kind of futures do we choose to enable, and why?

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