• 5 min read

Responsive design trends in the age of AI.

Creative trends often feel like they appear out of thin air. But most aren’t random at all. They grow over years, shaped by evolving audience needs and the technology fuelling them.

AI has now given us shiny new tools to meet those needs at speed. To surface the latent ambitions of seasoned creatives and push boundaries further than ever. And that’s exactly what we’re seeing now in branding and activation: a shift from fixed identities to living, responsive systems. Brands that adapt in the moment, at scale, and in context.

The frontlines of AI-powered creativity.

Mass-market industries like lifestyle, fashion, leisure, entertainment and FMCG have been the natural testing ground for responsive brand experiences. In these hyper-competitive spaces, the pressure to innovate is relentless. These brands stay relevant by embedding themselves in culture. Showing they’re in-the-know, at the cutting edge and always on the move. That’s why many of the trends we’re exploring in this first WAVE are already actively shaping how these brands look, sound and behave in the moment.

Our focus is on where they go next. How AI can supercharge these trends to work harder. And how they could translate into the more specialist, enterprise-level sectors we work with. Based on insights from our creatives who use AI as part of their toolkit. Because, even as AI gets smarter, it’s people – designers, strategists, storytellers – who shape how and where these systems flex, and who stay accountable for the outcomes.

Here’s what we observed.

Adaptive emotive systems.

Billions of connected devices and trillions of pieces of content now live in our palms and pockets. Younger generations have been born into this reality. Most of them don’t just want to see branding. They want to see themselves in branding. They want assets that flex to represent them, bringing an intentional and adaptive sensory depth across all touchpoints. And brands are already using AI to deliver this.

Like Strava, which delivered 224 AI-powered assets over 6 weeks, each tailored to platform-specific KPIs. These tackled themes of wellbeing, community and fun, flexing across hundreds of formats, adapting to channel and audience desire while staying true to their high-energy, athletic personality.

zoom

(Source: Superside)

Or Nutella who, a few years ago, created seven million unique jar designs, each generated by a bespoke algorithm combining bold patterns and punchy colour palettes.

zoom
zoom
zoom

(Source: dezeen)

Spotify has also been at the forefront of making brand expression feel personal. Its annual Spotify Wrapped turns individual listening habits into a shareable story, flexing language, sonic and visual cues to each user’s data and visualising both local and global trends in bold, expressive ways.

zoom

(Source: Spotify Design)

But these are early signals. And they’re nothing new. The next step is full-context emotional coding. Assets that adapt not only to platform or placement, but to audience mood, moment and mindset.

Typography, alongside colour and motion, is at the frontline of this innovation. Adobe’s Project Glyph Ease gave us a glimpse, generating complete, use-ready alphabets. Soon, AI will tailor type in real time. Not just responsive sizes, but fully personalised experiences that shift with the reader, adapting to age, mood, reading conditions, even language context. Emotional and psychological data will be baked into design choices, verifying how a font feels, not just how it looks.

In many specialist sectors, like medtech, the potential runs deep. Think patient portals where typography subtly adjusts to improve legibility for older users or those with visual impairments. Colour palettes that shift to convey reassurance during sensitive updates, or adopt more energetic tones for encouraging health milestones. Kinetic type that guides patients through complex processes at a pace that feels calm and supportive, while switching to faster, more directive behaviours for urgent alerts to clinicians.

Living brand avatars.

If adaptive type, motion and colour form the backbone of responsive brand identity, mascots and avatars are becoming its living, breathing face. What started as symbolic shorthand for personality is now something far more expressive.

We’re already seeing the groundwork. Take LG’s expressive icons, for example. They change tone to match context, move with a warm and witty attitude, and adapt to audience moods and needs.

zoom

(Source: LG)

Or The Dot, Headspace’s unofficial but most recognisable avatar. In meditation sessions, it guides users with purposeful motion. Breathing in and out.

zoom

(Source: It’s Nice That)

Now, AI is taking mascots and giving them the ability to listen, learn and adapt in the moment. Like Nars’s AI-rendered brand ambassadors. They have distinct looks, backstories and voices, designed to live across social, gaming and other immersive spaces.

zoom

(Source: Vogue)

Closer to our clients’ sectors, in fintech, Klarna’s CEO Hotline turns a customer‑service moment into a brand‑defining experience, letting shoppers speak with a lifelike (voice) clone of CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski.

zoom

(Image source: Klarna)

Built on neural speech synthesis, it creates a controllable vocal asset. In effect, it is an audio-first avatar. It signals where mascots and avatars are heading with AI. More than visual symbols, they’re becoming multi-sensory, adaptive interfaces.

These mascots will soon be able to read audience signals and adjust tone, appearance and behaviour in real time. The same avatar could be high-energy and informal with one user, measured and authoritative with another. It might recognise mood from facial cues, soften language for reassurance or quicken pace to match urgency.

Immersive experiential branding.

Brand environments are no longer bound by walls. They’re now expanding into the virtual through AI, AR and VR, making audiences part of the experience. Wherever they are in the world.

This shift has accelerated in the past year, with leading brands building spaces that put emotion and community at the centre, while products play a supporting role. Pop-ups, cafés, curated exhibitions, hybrid stores – each designed to create value through connection.

In some of these cases, AI is the accelerant. For example, Nike’s House of Innovation in Paris gave shoppers an AI-powered meditation journey inside a flagship retail space. A multi-sensorial activation, perfectly on-brand, shifting the focus from transaction to wellbeing.

zoom

(Source: Forbes)

Surely, the boundary between real and virtual is now increasingly blurry. AI can bring automation into the physical world – like the newly opened Robot Mall in Beijing, where humanoid robots run cafés, stores and entertainment venues – or carry the physical into the virtual, as Lowe’s has with NVIDIA Omniverse.

Their digital twin technology simulates store layouts to make shopping paths shorter, shelves smarter, and AR headsets give staff “x-ray” vision for instant inventory checks. Efficiency and experience, delivered together.

For many Gen Zers, this blend of worlds is second nature. The gaming environments they grew up with shaped their expectations. And in those virtual worlds, gamification is intrinsic to buying. Tokens, trades, unlocks, badges – these mechanics keep people engaged for hours, and will soon be baked into retail experiences with AI.

Storylines can surface products in ways that feel like discoveries, not displays. A VR car showroom, for instance, could challenge drivers to complete laps to unlock new terrains or driving modes. These missions could reward choices or purchases with badges, exclusive content or early access offers.

Because AI can read where someone looks, how fast they move, or what they interact with, the space can adapt instantly, creating a personalised rhythm that keeps users exploring longer. For brands, this means higher dwell time, deeper engagement and more insight into what converts.

This matters. Because Gen Z’s spending power is set to eclipse that of any generation before them. The brands that win their attention will be the ones that make shopping feel less like a transaction and more like a world they want to keep returning to.

Let’s ride the WAVE.

AI is opening doors to creative possibilities we’ve only just started to explore. Most strikingly, it’s extending sensory depth in branding. It signals a new era where brands move with audiences. Sound like them, feel alive to them.

And this is only the beginning.

In our next WAVE, we’ll dive into visual sameness vs cut‑through. How AI tools have supercharged production but also fuelled design clichés. And how the most distinctive brands are breaking the mould instead of blending into it.

If this first WAVE sparked ideas, make sure to share it with your network. And subscribe to our newsletter to get the next instalment straight into your inbox.


Share this article

Loading preset...

Related Articles

Generative Engine Optimisation. The new frontier of digital strategy.

Search is changing. Fast. And it’s not just about rankings anymore. Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) is how websites earn their place in the AI conversation. Because today, visibility doesn’t…
4 min read

Beyond movement. How motion branding creates deeper brand experiences.

Between crowded scrolls and an ensemble of screens surrounding our every step, the world now moves faster than ever. And brands have embraced this rhythm. Recent trend reports call out this surge.…
5 min read

The new rules of contemporary logo design.

Once a stamp of ownership, now a dynamic expression of identity. In a world of fluid interfaces and fast-moving feeds, leading brands are pushing the limits of logo design. What logos can do and how…
6 min read