Intelligence Systems Innovation
Using AI to design new AI propositions for a global content platform
Made by Many has worked continuously for a decade with an international research and content organisation. We lead strategic design across their entire digital estate, including product innovation and the creation of new AI interfaces and services for their customers.
The challenge
Our client wanted to use AI to unlock new value by connecting fragmented data and knowledge across their organisation. Like many global institutions, they faced the challenge of transforming a vast, complex information landscape into something more connected, intelligent, and usable.
The opportunity was to explore how emerging AI capabilities could turn that complexity into clarity, surfacing insight, linking systems, and enabling new ways to make decisions and create value.
This kind of challenge demands a different approach: designing not just for what AI can do today, but for what it will make possible tomorrow. It’s about moving from reactive innovation to preemptive exploration; building understanding, prototypes, and pathways now, so the organisation is ready to act when technology reaches the next threshold.
Our approach
We leverage AI as both canvas and active toolkit for future exploration, using AI prototyping tools to work with existing infrastructure and data. This transforms R&D from reactive to anticipatory. Instead of responding to what AI can do today, we design for what it will enable tomorrow.
Working with internal teams and strategic partners, we rapidly visualise possibilities with real platform data, identifying high-potential directions where AI enables fundamentally new value. We focus relentlessly on experiences that would be impossible without AI.
Creating visceral provocations
We build high-fidelity prototypes that manifest products from over the horizon—conceptual experiences that emotionally demonstrate transformative potential. We challenge assumptions with working demonstrations, not speculation.
For each direction, we establish clear narratives that resonate with C-suite stakeholders, mapping operational implications, resource requirements, and implementation pathways. These provocations serve as inspirational waypoints, helping leadership emotionally grasp fundamental shifts underway through tangible experiences rather than abstract concepts.
From provocation to production
We use these demonstrations to shape product roadmaps grounded in future capabilities, identifying the operational and commercial systems needed to support new services. This creates clear pathways from provocation to production, ensuring our work informs real organisational change.
The impact
This approach has enabled our client to move from reactive to anticipatory—designing for the future rather than responding to the present, ready to deploy when AI crosses critical capability thresholds. Ultimately enabling the organisation to lead rather than follow in AI-enabled transformation.
We've transformed abstract AI possibilities into emotionally resonant demonstrations that accelerate strategic decision-making. Exploration cycles have compressed from months to weeks, allowing leadership to make strategic choices with high-fidelity evidence rather than theoretical frameworks.
Crucially, we bridge vision and execution. Future possibilities connect directly to current roadmaps and operational planning. Provocations inform real systems and organisational change while maintaining enterprise rigour.
What makes this work
We don't wait for AI to mature—we design for future capabilities so solutions are ready when technology catches up. Instead of slide decks about potential futures, we build provocations that stakeholders can experience emotionally and intellectually. By building with actual platform data and systems, we prove viability rather than creating fantasy scenarios.
We deliberately explore beyond current technical constraints to uncover opportunities that don't work yet, but soon will. Our provocations are designed for executive-level users who need precision, trust, and transformative vision. A decade of collaboration means we understand the organisation's mission, constraints, and opportunities as deeply as any internal team.
The making-first difference
This work exemplifies Made by Many's philosophy: stop talking about it, start making it. In the AI era, this approach is more powerful than ever. AI tools let us build sophisticated provocations in days whilst simultaneously exploring futures that don't yet exist. Leadership can see, touch, and emotionally grasp transformative possibilities before committing resources—dramatically reducing risk whilst accelerating innovation.
We don't predict the future. We manifest it, make it visceral, and help our clients decide if it's worth pursuing.
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