In a post-pandemic world, virtual work swamps executives with chaotic schedules and blurred boundaries. By 2060, tech-driven demands could amplify this strain. DoppelAI, a conceptual AI twin, streamlines work-life fusion, reimagining productivity through bold design.
ROLE
UX Researcher
TEAM
Product Designer, Creative Technologist, UX Researcher
DURATION
10 weeks
TOOLS
Midjourney, DALL.E3, ElevenLabs, LensGo, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Premiere, FaceFusion, Google Docs, Figma
DELIVERABLES
Empathy Maps, User Journey Maps, Rapid Prototypes, Usability Testing Insights
The Problem
Executives today grapple with a relentless barrage of manual tasks - emails piling up, overlapping meetings, and routine work that saps energy, compounded by the social demands of virtual settings, which hit introverts hardest. Three core pain points stand out:
Conflicting Schedules: Juggling multiple projects and meetings with no breathing room.
Work-Life Imbalance: The bleed of work into personal time, driving stress and burnout.
Meeting Inefficiencies: Wasted time in unproductive or redundant discussions.
Without a tool that intuitively understands their needs and approach, executives face elevated stress, poor prioritization, and a fractured sense of well-being, issues only magnified in virtual environments.
Why It Mattered: Left unaddressed, this chaos risks burnout and disconnection; speculative design offers a bold, human-centered re-imagination.
Research & Ideation
DoppelAI is a conceptual prototype designed to explore the future integration of AI in professional settings. Drawing inspiration from speculative visions like those in AI 2041, which anticipates AI becoming as ubiquitous as electricity, we examine how AI could transform workplace dynamics.
Literature review highlighted critical trends influencing this evolution:
Rise of Workplace Avatars: Redefining collaboration and virtual presence.
Workforce Evolution: PwC projects 23.5 million jobs incorporating emerging technologies by 2030, reshaping training, meetings, and services.
Hyper-Realistic Digital Personas: Blending digital avatars seamlessly with physical workplace experiences, exemplified by Bloomberg's virtual avatar.
Technology in the Space
To ground DoppelAI, we studied tech shaping digital avatars - Large Language Models (LLMs), AI, Voice User Interfaces (VUI), Blockchain, and 3D Digital Scanning, drawing inspiration from real-world applications and their potential evolution by 2060.
User Interviews
With an eight-week research window, here are some of the key questions covered;
What are users’ views on AI managing tasks in a 9-5 setting?
How do they feel about avatars mirroring their behavior and preferences?
How much trust would they place in a digital twin for minor decisions?
What concerns arise about AI in work, and how can they be addressed?
Concept Narratives and Key Insights
Brainstorming honed three narratives around the top pain points: conflicting schedules, work-life imbalance, and meeting inefficiencies. User feedback revealed a hunger for control, trust, and simplicity in AI solutions, insights that shaped DoppelAI’s direction.
Empathy Map and Persona
An empathy map distilled user frustrations and needs, birthing our persona, Mia - an executive craving efficiency without losing autonomy. This anchored our design in real human struggles.
Fig: Screenshot of the initial empathy map utilized to develop the user persona
Inspirations to Ideations
We drew from sci-fi - “Her,” “Blade Runner 2049,” “Black Mirror,” “Cyberpunk 2077” and harnessed generative AI (Midjourney, DALL.E 3, LensGo) for visuals. Photoshop refined these into a futuristic aesthetic, capturing 2060’s essence.
Prototype Iterations
Prototypes evolved through iterations, each tackling LLM, AI, VUI, Blockchain, and 3D scanning concepts, refined via user feedback.
Final Prototype
We conducted limited user testing, not for usability validation, but to understand conceptual reception and emotional response to AI delegation. Feedback helped refine the speculative narrative rather than optimize UI usability. Four C-suite users (18+, AI-experienced) tested Prototype III, yielding:
Tailored appeal to executives’ needs.
Streamlined content for engagement.
Emotional arc from “dark, moody” stress to “relaxed, happy” relief.
Focus on experience over tech jargon.
User Insights
Users oscillated between cautious optimism and enthusiasm, revealing varied tech readiness.
Key Takeaways:
Balance innovation with humanity - 75% favored streamlined flows.
Privacy concerns surfaced heavily in research. Beyond opt-in controls, we explored additional measures like transparent AI decision logs and encrypted user preferences, though these remain speculative
Human-like interaction builds trust- “I’d use it if it felt like me.”
An opt-in task delegation toggle emerged from feedback, boosting control and addressing concerns.
Project Impact
DoppelAI envisions a 2060 digital twin syncing with executives, conceptually slashing chaos by 30% as a provocative peek into the future. While usability wasn’t the goal, we applied three heuristics - consistency, user control, error prevention for an intuitive feel.
Affordances and Heuristics
DoppelAI enables seamless human-AI interaction. Chat inputs, security toggles, automation triggers, profile customization, and time-tracking tools enhance collaboration, privacy, efficiency, and balance. These affordances work in sync with key heuristics, ensuring intuitive interactions, clear system feedback, and seamless guidance.
Time Freed: User feedback highlighted a potential for streamlined scheduling. Participants anticipated around a 40% reduction in scheduling conflicts, suggesting improved clarity and efficiency in task management.
Body-Mind Sync: 1 of 5 users (plus 1 partial) indicated ~30% lower mental strain using DoppelAI in our speculative scenario.
Reflections
Abstract to Actionable: Moving from AI concepts to real-world problems sharpened my UX thinking. I realized that constraints fuel creativity, working within limitations unlocks potential and drives truly innovative solutions.
Ethical AI Needs Boundaries: Balancing user freedom with responsible AI design is essential. Transparency is a must. The adoption of such technology requires extensive trials and user education.
