Four Lessons from the AssistKD Service Design Forum 22 July 2026

Artificial intelligence is changing both the services organisations deliver and the way those services are designed. But as AI becomes embedded in more customer journeys, a new question is emerging: how do organisations adopt AI without losing trust?

That was the focus of discussion at the latest AssistKD Service Design Forum, where practitioners from across the profession came together to explore the opportunities and challenges AI presents for Service Design.

The forum forms part of AssistKD's ongoing work to bring together practitioners to explore the future of Service Design and organisational change.

What emerged wasn't a conversation about which AI tools to use. It was a discussion about something much bigger: how organisations can adopt AI in ways that improve services while maintaining trust, good judgement and a relentless focus on people.

1. AI is changing Service Design – but people still make the decisions

AI is rapidly becoming part of the Service Designer's everyday toolkit.

Teams are already using it to generate ideas, draft documentation, analyse information and speed up routine tasks.

But one message came through consistently: AI can generate options, not judgement.

Participants repeatedly highlighted the importance of context, empathy, ethics, validation and critical thinking. These remain uniquely human capabilities that determine whether a service genuinely works for the people using it.

Takeaway: Use AI to accelerate work, but don't outsource the decisions that shape customer outcomes.

2. Trust is becoming the next design challenge

Many of the concerns raised during the workshop had little to do with AI's technical capability. Instead, they centred on trust.

Attendees discussed misleading outputs, plagiarism, overconfident responses, poor validation and organisations accepting AI-generated content without sufficient challenge.

The conversation shifted from asking "Can AI do this?" to asking "How do we design AI-enabled services that people can trust?"

For Service Designers, this means designing transparency, governance and appropriate human oversight into services from the outset.

3. Most organisations are still finding their way

No two organisations described the same level of AI maturity.

Some were cautiously exploring opportunities. Others admitted their approach felt haphazard or driven by pressure to keep up with rapid technological change.

Few believed they had mature governance or a clear long-term strategy.

Rather than seeing this as a weakness, the discussion highlighted a shared reality: organisations are learning together.

Takeaway: Successful AI adoption depends as much on organisational capability as it does on technology.

4. Great Service Design connects customer needs with organisational capability

The forum concluded with a lightning talk exploring an important challenge for Service Designers: creating services that don't just meet customer needs, but can also be delivered consistently across the organisation.

Understanding customers is fundamental to Service Design. But customer insight alone doesn't create better services. Organisations also need the capabilities, processes and structures to turn those insights into experiences that work in practice.

The session explored how Business Architecture supports Service Design by providing that organisational foundation. Rather than treating customer research and organisational design as separate activities, the two disciplines work together to ensure services are both desirable for customers and achievable for the organisation. Customer journeys, empathy mapping and Voice of the Customer research become far more valuable when they are connected to the capabilities that deliver them.  

Takeaway: Great Service Design doesn't stop at understanding people. It ensures organisations have the capability to deliver the experiences customers expect.

What should Service Designers do next?

The discussions highlighted five practical priorities for organisations adopting AI:

• Start with the customer problem, not the AI.
• Use AI to support decision-making, not replace it.
• Build trust through transparency, governance and validation.
• Keep ethics and human judgement at the centre of Service Design.
• Ensure new services are supported by strong organisational capabilities, not just new technology.

Many of these themes are explored in greater depth in the book Service Design: A Practical Guide to Creating Customer-Centric Services, recently published by BCS.

The bigger picture

Perhaps the most reassuring outcome of the forum was that nobody claimed to have all the answers. Across sectors and organisations, practitioners described many of the same opportunities, concerns and unanswered questions.

That shared experience reinforces the importance of communities such as the AssistKD Service Design Forum, where professionals can explore emerging challenges together and learn from one another.

The biggest lesson from the day was also the simplest.

The future isn't just about using AI to improve Service Design. It's about using Service Design to make AI trustworthy enough for organisations and customers to rely on.

Read our article about AI enabled transformation here.

Find out more about our Service Design courses here.