Malin Leschly, Logitech’s chief design officer, earned her chops on the {hardware} firm by working for a demanding set of shoppers: Livestreamers. “Streamers wish to look good, they wish to sound good, they usually wish to have management over what they do,” she says.
Now, simply over half a yr into her position as Logitech’s CDO, Lechsley is exploring how the corporate can use AI to make life a little bit simpler for content material creators. In September, Logitech, by means of its Streamlabs subsidiary, launched an “AI Recreation Highlighter” that routinely converts livestreams on Twitch into shorter clips that may be shared on platforms like YouTube, X and Instagram.
“It’s a possibility the place we are able to see if AI will be useful,” she says. Streamers, for instance, contemplate modifying their content material to be “worse than schoolwork.”
Winding path
Leschly took over as Logitech’s chief design officer in April, changing Alastair Curtis, who’d spent a decade on the agency. The {hardware} firm has lengthy prided itself on its design focus, with former CEO Bracken Darrell talking overtly concerning the design course of on the heart of the corporate.
The designer took a “winding path” to the {hardware} firm, she says. Leschly grew up in Sweden, the place “just about any expertise you could have is designed.” She arrived within the U.S. to attend enterprise college within the late Nineties. “California obtained its enamel in me,” she explains.
Leschly bounced round startups and design businesses, together with a stint at design studio Non Object, which labored on the UE MEGABOOM, a bluetooth speaker whose design is now “extensively copied on virtually any Bluetooth speaker in the marketplace.” Leschly joined Logitech when the {hardware} producer acquired Non Object in 2018. “It wasn’t a giant leap to maneuver from smaller corporations or a small studio to Logitech,” she remembers.
Logitech is now barreling into the AI development, integrating the brand new know-how into its many services. Earlier this yr, Logitech modified its pc mice by including a devoted “AI Immediate Builder” button, which routinely launches the generative AI program ChatGPT with preset prompts.
AI is a controversial know-how within the design house, as critics argue it rehashes previous concepts, reinforces present biases and, importantly, places people out of labor.
Leschly nonetheless sees AI as the most recent in a protracted collection of instruments for designers, like Adobe Photoshop and Epic Video games’s Unreal Engine. Nonetheless, she agrees that overusing AI has dangers.
Design is “craft and creativity,” she says. “If AI is all about doing the identical factor over and over, there’s no creativity in that. There’s no optimistic, significant shock.”
“We are able to’t use AI in that manner,” she says.
‘Constraints into alternatives’
In 2023, Logitech pledged to incorporate on every product’s packaging the full carbon emissions generated over its lifespan. It’s a part of a sustainability push for the {hardware} firm, recognized for its peripherals ubiquitous in places of work the world over.
Sustainability matches into Leschley’s design philosophy of making an attempt to show “constraints into alternatives.” For instance, Logitech’s Casa pop-up desk, launched final yr, makes use of round 80% recycled plastic in its touchpad and 60% in its keyboard. Each wi-fi peripherals are packaged with a laptop computer stand; Logitech pitches the mixed merchandise as a straightforward manner for customers to work from any floor within the house.
“We diminished the carbon footprint of this product by greater than a 3rd,” she says.
Courtesy of Logitech
The Casa desk can be notable in being derived, not less than partially, from the wants of Logitech’s prospects, notably these in Asia. “Many individuals neither have the house nor the will to have a desk.” she says. “It was very true amongst ladies. They needed to maneuver round of their properties.”
That’s not the one remark Logitech’s drawing from its Asian customers. Leschly notes that youthful Asians at the moment are “blurring” work and play. The most recent factor her staff is noticing? Youthful staff are bringing their gaming keyboards into the workplace, reasonably than counting on the usual cookie-cutter mannequin.
For these customers, a cushty keyboard is “like discovering your favourite sweater,” Leschly says. “They love the typing expertise!”
Fortune’s Brainstorm Design convention is returning on Dec. 5 on the MGM Cotai in Macau. Panelists and attendees will debate and focus on “Experiments in Expertise,” designs that blur the road between the bodily and digital worlds to captivate customers and foster lasting connections. Register right here!
