Samsung Design Open Lab is an open laboratory with a lot of experiments mixed with some commercial products. The reality is, if you let AI do everything, then your company is going to progressively look more and more like the other company, because AI is going to become more and more like a commodity. You know, the human inputs, the interaction between the human perspective and the AI perspective, is what is going to generate something that is original.
That's Mauro Porcini, president and chief design officer of Samsung. Since Mauro joined Samsung last year, I've been eager to talk with him about the Korean consumer tech giant, its competition with Apple, and the impact of AI on its products. This week, as part of Milan Design Week, Mauro unveiled a slew of new ideas and experiments that give a glimpse of Samsung's future and of what may drive the tech future for all of us. So, let's get to it. I'm Bob Safian and this is Rapid Response.
I'm Bob Safian. I'm here with Mauro Porcini, president and chief design officer at Samsung. Mauro, welcome back to Rapid Response.
Bob, hi everybody. Really a pleasure to be back.
You were last on the show in 2022 when you were chief design officer at PepsiCo. Last year you moved over to Samsung as its first ever chief design officer. So how different is the task that you've taken on from what you did at PepsiCo? You were the first chief design officer there also.
And I was the first at 3M as well. So, and I'm saying this because the jobs are really similar no matter the industry. You know, I'm an industrial designer. I spent at 3M 10 years in tech, and then I did this first mega leap, giant leap, to go to a completely different kind of industry in food and beverage. I never worked in that industry. And then one year ago again I do another giant step. It's not just, you know, going back to the consumer tech industry, but moving to a completely different region of the world. Designers, what they do is they observe people, their needs, their wants, and they try to build solutions. The methodologies we use, the approach we have, is transversal to any kind of industry. Obviously the companies are different, the culture is different. I'm European. I worked for many years in the United States and now I'm working in Korea. You know, a different world, but with very similar challenges.
It's probably a decade or more ago, as I recall, you took PepsiCo's then CEO Indra Nooyi on a trip to Seoul to sort of study Samsung's design, right? Does this feel like it's full circle for you a little bit?
It is actually even before. I remember I was a student in university in the '90s and I was observing how Samsung was progressively transforming to become an iconic design leader in the world. So I've been fascinated with Samsung already. I hired people out of Samsung to join me, for instance, in 3M. And when I joined PepsiCo, as you just mentioned, I asked Indra if she wanted to go and see some companies that were really seriously invested in design. And so we took the plane and we came all the way to Korea. It is full circle.
As an Italian in American business and as a designer working with business people, you've always been a little bit of an outsider in some ways in the communities you're in. Now, as you get to Seoul and sort of you're the first non-Korean president in Samsung's history, like how much of being an outsider is good or bad? And, you know, how do you sort of, I don't know, impact the culture without alienating the people, you know, who built it?
This idea of being suspended between different worlds. I grew up in Italy, in the north of Italy, from parents from the south, in a moment in time in Italy where the south and the north were really divided. I would go around my neighborhood, it was clear that I was not belonging there. But then when I was going to the south on vacation during the summer, for sure I was not belonging there either. So already then, when I was a child, I lived in this gray area and this suspension between different identities. If you talk to the design world, often they're like, 'Well, but you're a business person.' But then if you talk to the business world, they are totally like, 'You're not one of us,' and so you don't belong there either. Often people are uncomfortable when they don't have a specific label, where they don't belong. The message I want to send, especially to the new generations of people that are trying to define their identity, often in those gray areas, you can design your own identity and be unique and original.
When I moved as an Italian to the United States, there were many things that I didn't understand. They were alien to me. They were weird to me, honestly. But you know, you need to really analyze yourself, analyze the culture you are in front of, and understand what are the unique strengths that I bring to the table. So here, it's a culture that is very organized. There is this vision coming from the top, and then an army of people that can execute. If the right way is, it's very powerful because they are able to move really quick. Obviously, you know, I was called to bring in a vision that is adding to the one that the company already had in design. So I spent really the past year trying to understand what were the strengths of the company and try to understand how I can bring something different. I'm still in the middle of it. You need to be, I think, very transparent about the fact that you will do missteps and mistakes. But again, you also need to show as much as possible, you know, what you bring to the table.
I've seen these commentaries on LinkedIn from designers talking about your move to Samsung and kind of finding hope in it. And I'm curious what that hope is referring to.
Look, I was surprised by those comments too. Design in corporations is somehow struggling. The design community made huge promises in the first decade of this new millennium about the power of design thinking, and then in many instances design thinking didn't deliver. Design thinking is important because you need a methodology, you need a process, you need tools. Exactly like a painter needs a brush. But then you need the right painter, you need Picasso, because if you give that brush to Picasso, you get something. If you give that brush to my accountant or my kid, you're going to get something different. And instead, our design community talked too much about the brush, you know, the bristles and the material and how to design the brush. And we forgot that at the end of the day what really makes the difference is the thinking of the design thinkers. Do we have the right empathy? Do we read the right signals? Do we have the right intuition to innovate? You need the tool. You need design thinking, but you also need the right people with the right mindset.
I was wondering how much of the reference to hope was referring to Samsung specifically. I mean, I'm struck that like PepsiCo, at least historically, was viewed as like the fighter brand compared to Coca-Cola, you know, and now you're at Samsung, which is enormous, but in consumer tech is kind of the fighter brand to Apple. You know, the parallel is really interesting.
When I joined PepsiCo, and I'm doing the same thing now in Samsung, what I'm telling my teams is: forget the other guys. We can't design against a competitor. That's really the wrong approach. We need to really focus on people and really understand how can we create the most extraordinary solution for them. And when I say solution, it means the best product, the best service, the best experience, the best communication and storytelling. If you work against a competitor, you may end up being blind to a sea of opportunities that eventually are new to the industry, are different for the industry. If you just focus on the competitor, you may do very interesting things. Don't take me wrong. There are endless cases of companies that focus on beating the competitor and did it very, very well. But if you really want to create value long term for your organization, if you build a culture that is really human-centered, a culture that is really thinking what is the ideal world for the people I serve.
You've been at Samsung for about a year and you're announcing this sort of design manifesto for Samsung's future this week as part of Milan Design Week. So can you give us a taste of that?
The pillar of what we're doing with design at Samsung is really making sure that designers are the voice of humanity in the organization. I identified four different territories, four categories where to focus on. The first one is what I call 'live longer.' Then there is 'live better,' 'live loud,' and 'live on.' Longer means all those technologies, most of them are wearable technologies, that we have to monitor your body and help you with your physical and mental well-being. And then all those technologies that are there for your safety, the safety of yourself, of your loved ones, of your pet, of your home, of your belongings. The second one, the 'live better,' is all about using technology to free up time to do what you love the most. This second dimension is literally about using robots and AI to increase the productivity of what you do, or ideally to do things on your behalf so that you can be free of technology and do whatever you want with or without technology. It's up to you, it's your choice. The third dimension, the 'live loud,' is the world of creativity, self-expression. It's about using technology to express yourself. It will go from creating content for social media all the way to, for instance, creating your startup from the comfort of your living room using those technologies. The fourth dimension is what we call 'live on.' It's about transcending yourself and preserving memories. We are saving pictures and videos of the people we love. I have thousands and thousands of pictures and videos of my family members. And I have almost nothing of, for instance, my grandparents, or especially when they were kids.
So already today, when people are not with us, either because they are on another side of the world or maybe because they're not with us in this world anymore, we can preserve their memories, their emotions, their knowledge. But more than ever now with AI, we can literally build digital twins of people. It will happen organically because the more we share everything we do with AI devices, AI platforms, the more these platforms will learn about us and will be able to replicate us in some form of way. My parents are in their 80s. I hope they're going to live for the next 50 years, but when they're not with me anymore, I would love to have a moment, you know, let's say have a moment of difficulty, to have the possibility to ask my dad, 'What would you do if you were me?' In all of these, you see that the technology is just a tool, is at the service of humanity.
When you come up with these four areas, to what extent do you sort of start with like, 'Here are the products we have now and we have to serve them,' versus like, 'Here are the questions and how do I move the products into there?'
There are three horizons that we're considering. One is the short horizon. You start from the products of today and you try to advance them in an incremental way, even though obviously you always try to figure out if there is something breakthrough that you can implement quickly. Then there is a second horizon where I need to figure out how I can do something that is more radical. But the area where the four categories apply the most is the long-term horizon. This is where you define the future portfolio of the company. If there are products that maybe in the future won't exist anymore because robots will do a lot of things that eventually other devices do today. So those devices will need to evolve. Let's say in 10 years' time, in a house where you have multiple kinds of robots. You have humanoids, you have utilitarian robots, small robots are more about emotional companionship. In this kind of house, our appliances will change. The robot will be the main interface between you and some of these appliances. AI is going to be in your house. How your TV, your refrigerator, your speakers will evolve, what will be the role, what will be the shape of these devices, where they will be placed. And then you go back to today and you start to influence the development of those products.
When you talk about having a digital twin of your parents to talk to, you know, that some people might find that like, 'Oh, that doesn't necessarily make me comfortable.' And I'm curious like whether there's any conflict within Samsung about sort of how AI and robotics might impact the role of humanity. I mean, there must be a lot of discussion about processes and safety guardrails. Like, how do you address all of that?
