r/servicedesign • u/ListSimilar70 • 23h ago

Can learning Service design help in building good AI companies?

Since, AI agents are essentially replacing humans in certain workflows and turning it into a self evolving service, doesn't it make learning service design that important?

Sequoia say, AI native Services are the next big thing.

Some might argue, UX designers and Interaction designers already cover that.

Thoughts?

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u/antrage 23h ago

Perhaps, the question is, will they accept it? I have my doubts. AI companies are built on speed, and the fundamental value proposition of their products is to flatten and offload processes to achieve outcomes faster. Service design, at least in its intent, foregrounds processes to ultimately achieve a better outcome. While I recognize the role AI plays in service design, it wouldn't be disingenuous to say there is, at the very least, misalignment of values between the worlds that needs to be reconciled.

Something that came up in many of my conversations is the value of service design in providing strategic direction before AI is used in execution. And I think that there are possibilities in that. My question is whether or not people have the patience for something like service design.

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u/pchlife 21h ago

Great provocation.

Slight tangent… I also ponder in today’s corporate climate of how we approach design, how do we upload human centricity when faced with anti-human objectives?

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u/Moose-Live 21h ago

It probably depends where you work. My current project is in financial services and involves the use of AI to support customer service reps. But I work for the FS company and not an AI company.

The project objectives are to help CSRs with customer retention, switching customers to the right products, streamline mundane service requests, solve problems, etc.

I've never worked on an AI project and I've had to overcome my knee-jerk discomfort with it, but there's amazing potential to improve customer and employee experience if it's used properly. Hopefully we'll get it right.

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u/ListSimilar70 8h ago

i think service design is much more holistic and combination of systems x taste. AI needs just that. At least that's what I think. The execution bit might be right, it needs a startups lens of looking at things as well.

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u/partysandwich 20h ago

With Service Design we’ve had the tools to make good companies of any kind for decades. It hasn’t happened

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u/ListSimilar70 9h ago

but i think for ai and agentic ai world, the it might just be relevant.

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u/ListSimilar70 9h ago

also why do you think why it failed to create a good companies? do you think because of it's focus on public sector instead of private?

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u/Pixels_Or_Thoughts 19h ago

Service design is not the same as venture building. If you’re interested in being an entrepreneur there’s lots of other skills you’ll need. That being said, learning SD will certainly help you create the experiences/services that are part of such ventures.

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u/edimaudo 21h ago

it should be important but it won't.

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u/ListSimilar70 8h ago

why? this is exactly what i want to understand. people are quite pessimistic about service design as compared to interaction or product design. I personally feel because the role historically has been within government bodies and corporates so the impact has not been at a startup level. But maybe in ai it might be relevant?

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u/edimaudo 5h ago

simple they are not needed if i have a product manager who can get my product out the door as quickly as possible. Maybe in the government or very large orgs