John Knight

The Shift to Within - Emergent Designerly Co-Production Practices in Generative Service Innovation

This paper explores emergent practices within the service design domain (Author, 2023). These new ways of working position design at the centre of rapidly evolving technologies, including artificial intelligence and Customer Experience Management, which are increasingly integrated into service co-production.
The article outlines, in both practical and progressive terms, how these technologies and human agents can be harmoniously orchestrated through fractional design work that emphasises ‘human-in-the-loop’ agency within service systems. Without such designerly intervention, there is a risk that technology and its advocates may diminish the positive potential of human augmentation.
Instead, this article argues that human and non-human actors converge within Generative Services, where the practice of ‘always-on’ design contributes to the continuous evolution of services. It describes this generative shift in service design, introduces a new era of conversational services as a practical design response to emerging technologies, and concludes by outlining the FLOW methodology.