Design thinking and GenAI: the Politecnico di Milano data

▤ Summary

This article summarizes new Politecnico di Milano research on design thinking in Italy and how GenAI is changing daily practice. It shows that small, centralized design teams still produce a high volume of innovation projects, but they struggle to prove strategic value to top management. The study also finds that GenAI tools are already widely used, especially for research, insight analysis, and problem framing, while execution-focused tasks see less adoption. The article highlights a growing need for stronger measurement, data literacy, and business alignment as design teams move toward more distributed and cross-functional operating models.

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