Future Now: Art of the Possible
In 2026, NYCxDESIGN debuts Future Now, a one-day summit exploring AI’s rapidly expanding influence across the full spectrum of design. From architecture to product, graphic design to art and technology, the program brings together leading voices shaping the future in real time.
This is not a distant forecast. It’s a live snapshot of a transformation already underway. Through a series of visionary talks and conversations, Future Now offers a sweeping look at how AI is redefining creativity, reshaping process, and expanding what’s possible.
The morning session focuses on emerging research and academic perspectives, offering a glimpse into the ideas and experiments that will define the next wave of design.
The afternoon session turns to practice, featuring leading professionals sharing how they are actively applying AI in their work today, from concept to execution.
Through a blend of keynote presentations, panels, and fireside chats, this session is a must see.
The summit is hosted by Will Hall, Chief Transformation Officer at PreSeason
Presented by
Presented by
Ilene Shaw has developed her career to championing exceptional design and expanding its public and cultural impact. Born in New York City and educated at Parsons School of Design, she began as a product designer and quickly recognized design’s power as both a discipline and an industry in need of strong platforms and global visibility.
She conceived and co-developed the International Contemporary Furniture Fair (ICFF) with GLM Management at a pivotal moment for the American design market, shaping its concept and guiding it through its formative first decade, as a premier North American showcase for contemporary furniture.
Shaw founded and produced Design Pavilion, a public design activation, and created Design Talks, a platform for leading design thinkers. An advocate for public art, she is a senior advisor to CODAworx and co-spearheaded the internationally acclaimed CODA Awards. She is also a frequent presenter on the CBS series America ByDesign, hosting interviews with leading voices in architecture and innovation worldwide. Shaw served as Executive Director of the Worldesign Foundation, a nonprofit launched by the Industrial Designers Society of America.
Will Hall is the Chief Transformation Officer at PreSeason and a Presenter on America by Design on CBS. A pioneer in Conversational AI, he built the first voice application for Alexa and later secured $60 million in funding, backed by sovereign wealth in Abu Dhabi, to build and scale an AI company across the Middle East and Asia.
Over the past two decades, Will has held creative and executive roles at RAIN, Adult Swim, Honest, MRY, and Rockwell LAB, shaping work across tech, AI, advertising, and design. His work has earned numerous Cannes Lions, ADC Pencils, and even a Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Award. He’s partnered with 23 of the Fortune 100, served on boards including Google's Agency Council and NCSU's Leadership Council, and is an MIT Media Lab Consortium Member. He was also part of the record-breaking Alibaba IPO, the largest in market history. His mom still has no idea what he does.
Mark Kingsley got his start designing album packages for John Coltrane, Pat Metheny, Quincy Jones, Ginger Baker, and Jewel — earning a Grammy nomination for his work for Blue Note Records in 2001.
He then moved into corporate branding. At Landor, he was global creative lead on the Citi account. As Executive Strategy Director at Collins, he developed the new global positioning for Ogilvy and guided Equinox into the luxury hotel space.
Mark is currently Vice President of Marketing for the fashion brand Oumlil. His boutique studio, Malcontent, serves everyone from fin-tech startups to living legends and Pulitzer Prize winners.
He teaches brand strategy through the lens of philosophy and critical theory at the School of Visual Arts Masters in Branding program. His best-selling book, "Universal Principles of Branding," was published in 2023, and "Brands in the Age of AI" came out last December — with translations soon appearing in Brazil, China, and Indonesia.
Wendy Ju is a professor of information science and design tech at Cornell Tech, the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science, the Cornell University College of Architecture, Art, and Planning, the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute, and the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology.
Ju comes to Cornell Tech from the Center for Design Research at Stanford University, where she was executive director of interaction design research, and from the California College of the Arts, where she was an associate professor of interaction design.
Ju’s work in the areas of human-robot interaction and automated vehicle interfaces highlights the ways that interactive devices can communicate and engage people without interrupting or intruding upon them. Ju has developed numerous methods for early-stage prototyping of automated systems to understand how people will respond to systems before they are built.
Ju has a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from Stanford University and a master’s degree in media arts and sciences from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her book, “The Design of Implicit Interactions,” was published in 2015. She was inducted into the ACM SIGCHI Academy in 2025.
Behnaz Farahi is an award winning designer and critical maker. She is an Assistant Professor at MIT Media Lab where she leads the Critical Matter research group. She holds a PhD in Interdisciplinary Media Arts and Practice from USC. Her work addresses critical issues such as feminism, emotion, perception and social interaction. Farahi has won several awards including the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum Digital Design Award, Innovation By Design Fast Company Award, World Technology Award. She is a co-editor of an issue of AD, ‘3D Printed Body Architecture’ and 'Interactive Design: Towards a Responsive Environment'.
John Cerone is a principal at SHoP Architects, where he directs dedicated initiatives for model-based delivery and offsite manufacturing. He is internationally recognized as an innovator in the application of emerging technologies for design and construction, and his work in Design for Manufacturing & Assembly processes, CAD/CAM integration and automation. John has defined the success of many SHoP projects, including the Barclays Center, Nassau Coliseum, and the Botswana Innovation Hub. He was instrumental in the creation and launch of Assembly OSM, applying automotive and aerospace manufacturing processes to transform capabilities in the practice of architecture, engineering, and construction. He is also a key contributor to transdisciplinary consortia that include key companies from the automotive, aerospace, and marine industries. John received a Master of Architecture from Columbia University and a Bachelor of Architecture from Miami University.
Shani Sandy is an artist, multidisciplinary designer, and executive who believes in the transformative power of design. Shani serves as VP, Experience Design at IBM leading design-driven innovation. Her mission is advancing human-centered design with an emphasis on crafting desirable and usable products, services, and experiences alongside cultivating the design culture. Prior to joining IBM, Shani was the Executive Creative Director at S&P Global, where she led the enterprise-wide creative agency, and the creative strategy, communication design, and ux practice areas. From launching her independent design studio in 2002, to present day, Shani continues to explore the many possibilities of a creative calling.
Shani holds a BA in Art History and BFA in Painting and Computer Art from Tufts University along with an MBA from the Berlin School of Creative Leadership. She also attended AIGA & Yale School of Management, Business Perspectives for Creative Leaders.
Shani is actively engaged in the creative and design community, speaking, teaching, and mentoring others and has a passion for nurturing emerging talent. She has been honored by several design institutions including GDUSA and the Design Management Institute and has served as a juror for AIGA, the Service Design College, and America by Design. Her work appears in Stanford University’s Black Graphic Design History Collections.
Kate Berman is a Staff Model Designer at Google DeepMind, where she has spent the last six years shaping natural, human-centered experiences. Before joining Google, Kate worked in a studio designing voice experiences including Esme and Roy (an Emmy-nominated Sesame Street game) and Westworld: The Maze (one of the most awarded skills on Alexa). Today, she defines the instructions and quality frameworks that guide LLM behavior. Kate comes to tech from a rich background in theater and cognitive science. Based in Baltimore, she is also a board game enthusiast and mom of two preschoolers.
Phil Gilbert is a serial entrepreneur, author, and former General Manager of Design at IBM, where he
led one of the most ambitious cultural transformations in modern business—changing how nearly
400,000 employees across 180 countries worked, without the authority to mandate any of it.
Instead, he treated change as a product that teams chose to adopt, an approach that became the
foundation of his book, Irresistible Change: A Blueprint for Earning Buy-In and Breakout Success
(Wiley, 2025). The IBM transformation has been the subject of a Harvard Business School case
study, the award-winning documentary The Loop, and features in The New York Times, Fortune, Fast
Company, and others. Phil now serves on the Board of Trustees for the Eames Institute for Infinite
Curiosity and advises senior leaders navigating high-stakes change driven by AI, design, and culture.
He lives in Austin, Texas.