The Project:

Exploring AI’s role in product innovation. SISU began as a research probe into how artificial intelligence could streamline early-stage product development and business planning, using a probiotic bath toy concept as a testbed. By simulating market analysis, customer segmentation, and revenue modelling with AI tools, the project questioned: Can algorithms help designers balance creativity with commercial viability?

How to leverage AI without losing human-centred insight? The investigation combined generative design, predictive analytics, and entrepreneurial frameworks:

• AI-assisted concept refinement, testing forms, material, and concepts against both real and simulated user data

• Automated business modelling, using AI to stress-test pricing, distribution, and refill strategies

• Human-AI collaboration—identifying where machine intelligence accelerates decisions, and where it falls short

The outcome wasn’t just a product, but a critical framework for AI-integrated design entrepreneurship, revealing how tools like predictive analytics can inform (but not replace) intuitive creativity but also finding where it fell short, for example in developing technical drawings and understanding production scalability.

My Role:

Research and design strategist // Evaluating AI outputs against real-world constraints, and documenting the results, stepping in to carry out CAD modeeling and concept refinement where AI struggled.. Collaborated with probiotic suppliers to ground speculative AI models in material reality.

Project collaborators: Noritaka Chiba & Harijs Lukevics