Hallucinations

The AI Variety Show is a collection of IDEO's latest, messiest, and most experimental work with AI.

As a team of human-centered designers, engineers, and technologists, the act of applying AI into our practice can feel contradictory. How do we keep people at the center of something that defies humanity? Well—our belief is that to design a more thoughtful relationship with technology, we first have to understand it—poke at its edges, trace its blind spots, and see what new forms it makes possible.

This show is our annual check-in with the machine. A chance to explore how far it's come, and wonder what implications it may hold for design, technology, and humanity.

"In the moment when I truly understand my enemy, understand him well enough to defeat him, then in that very moment I also love him." Orson Scott Card, Ender's Game

Gazing into a future shaped by AI, the potential timelines that branch out in front of us feel infinitely generative, and yet permanently out of focus. This year's theme emerges from that haze. Hallucinations is a nod to the surreal, sometimes ridiculous outputs of generative models, but also to a deeper, more unsettling question—how do we know what is real? When we envision our future through these tools, are we seeing prophecies of what's to come, or distortions of our reality?

Perhaps these visions aren't entirely out of our hands. We have more authorship over our future than we realize. The machine dreams—but we decide what to build.

"There is absolutely no inevitability as long as there is a willingness to contemplate what is happening." Marshall McLuhan, The Medium is the Massage

As AI has evolved, so has the format of our show. What began as a tool for static image generation has become something more active—an unpredictable partner capable of creating fully immersive experiences. We wanted this year's show to mirror this shift, evolving from a standalone video to an interactive website.

Everything in this show—the visuals, sounds, and even the foundation of the website itself—has been touched by AI in some way. It's not just a gallery of work about AI; it's an artifact made with it.

In that sense, the show acts as a kind of timestamp. A marker of where the technology is right now—and an open question about where it might go next.

"All that you touch you change. All that you change changes you. The only lasting truth is Change."
Octavia Butler, Parable of the Sower