California Management Review
California Management Review is a premier academic management journal published at UC Berkeley
by Jan Recker, Frederik von Briel, Youngjin Yoo, Varun Nagaraj, and Mickey McManus
Image Credit | Ryan Ancill
Product innovation increasingly involves both human designers (engineers, developers, lead users, creative geniuses, and other innovators) and machine designers (algorithmically organized software tools that autonomously collect and interpret data to make innovative design decisions). This article provides practical guidance about how firms can leverage different forms of machine designers in tandem with human designers to fundamentally change the way they engage in product innovation. It describes how successful companies have managed to optimally orchestrate the capabilities of human and machine designers to create both effective and ethical product innovations that were previously unthinkable.
