How We Used AI To Speed Up Product Development Time
- Ben Weiss
- Apr 18
- 3 min read
AI is rapidly changing the way we create products from start to finish in the physical word, just take our example of making a real pair of slides with AI that are commercially viable. AI shoes are here to stay and AI product development is too!
Traditional VS AI Design
When you traditionally create a pair of shoes you provide inspiration to your designer from other models done and share other visual cues to give he or she the direction necessary to begin sketches. Once the designer feels ready to showcase version one they show you and you can ask for necessary revisions prior to seeing new sketches.
Repetition breeds excellence
You may have a couple to around a handful sessions to finalize the concept sketch of your new footwear or product. This process can be timely and costly for you. What if there was a different way to finalize a concept direction for your product without so many sketches by hand taking up your designers time?
The AI First Approach (From AI Shoes)
We are pioneering a new method of concept creation for footwear, which can be applied elsewhere. We share the concept with our designer in this case Kedar Benjamin and he generates highly detailed AI images in sets of various concepts based on the direction proposed. Then we review a whiteboard of these and select the closest matches. There are so many more options and they take less time to create!
AI Concept Generation Is Here And Ready!
We can proceed to tell our designer Kedar what we like and don’t and sometimes come to a close to finalized idea in just a meeting with tweaks being made instantaneously. You can do this for nearly any product you want to create with the right designer. Kedar is experienced in footwear creation so he knows what is possible and not and his conceptualizations are accurate to reality.
Features Upon Features
There are likely tons of ideas you have for your new product and without the ability to see them, you may never know. Of course each project has its budget and its constraints, but with AI rapid concept creation you can envision these fast and seamlessly. It also gives your designer more time to test out concepts and be less worried about the time it will take.
AI Generation Of Patterns And Textures
Another great way to apply AI to your product creation, which we did for our AI shoes, is to have it create a texture or pattern on your finished form of the design. We used a Generative Model from our designer that enabled us to rapidly see different ways the shoes can look based on what AI thought would be ideal. The patterns were able to be changed in thickness, how much they appeared, and what types they were.
Infinite Customization Is Here To Stay
You don’t need to have test textures drawn out by hand each time, these can be done with generative AI that can be fashioned in any style you would like. We saw it worked excellently and wanted patterns inspired by spaceships. This came out great and we got to see many different spaceship like pattern options quickly to make a well informed decision. We cycled through a pattern a second, it felt like!
The Role of Designers In The Future
You may be thinking why do we need typical product designers if you can generate design? The way we view this is that if you have a great designer and they know how to use AI, you will see excellent work. As their fundamental design approach and knowledge is important to producing a great end result. AI may understand design but the human nuances are significantly important and valuable to your target audience. That experience is unmatched. AI and humans can work excellently together and the designers of the future will embrace AI as their companion!
The Xplorer Slide From Syntilay Breaks The Mold
The above information is based on our successful launch of the Xplorer slide, which has become a piece of history being the world's first AI designed commercially available shoe. It has been discussed around the globe as it isn't merely a concept, it is commercially available now. You too can use AI to impact your creative product development, just like we did.
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