 Hi, I'm Marc van Tijn and this is the second service design trend report. In this episode, we're going to look back on the past 10 episodes and see what patterns have emerged. If you want to know what the major trends are within service design at this moment, but didn't have the time to look at all the previous episodes, this episode is just for you. If you haven't seen the first trend report where we talked about things like internalizing service design, the rise of service prototyping, the need to measure value and impact and the transformation of business culture, be sure to check that out too. In the last 10 episodes, we've had some of the most inspiring service designers from across the globe on the show. People like Xingsang Yang, Louis Aalt and Stephemorts. We talked about topics like service culture, about the next great service providers and also about reforming design education. But some topics just kept coming back throughout all the different episodes. Topics that give us an insight into the current trends that are shaping the service design field. In this episode, we'll be talking about three trends. About artificially intelligent services. About democratizing service design. And finally about doing the right thing. So let's take a closer look at these trends one by one. The first trend is called artificial intelligence services. Almost everyone talked about this topic. It had different names like cyber services and superhuman services, but in essence they were all the same. I will ask when will artificially intelligent services become quite well known? When will people know what they mean? Artificial intelligence may still sound like sci-fi or something that is only used to drive autonomous vehicles. But it's making its way into services and it's doing it fast. Touchpoints that are being digitalized will soon also be augmented through artificial intelligence. Just imagine a whole call center crew being replaced by one artificially intelligent service. A service that is much cheaper, more consistent and provides a higher quality. And according to Chris and Lo, it's already happening. Literally there's been examples of software intervening in this process now and starting we're having artificially intelligent agents start to represent themselves either through voice or text as intermediaries for a company and they're taking over some of that customer interaction. The rise of AI is unstoppable. Though there were some interesting questions related to services. The question is not if we should be using artificial intelligence within services. It's much more about how can we humanize AI? And what I mean by superhuman from a service perspective is like how can we help technology to be smart and make decisions for us but not lose the human touch and how can we have a human level of quality that is aided by tech to be good so you know high tech, high touch, yin yang, hybrid, something and I think that's really interesting. One of the first things people talk about when they think about AI within services are chat bots that you as a customer interact with. But there are many more applications for AI as computer vision and voice recognitions. If you haven't done it already, now is a good time to start thinking about which touch points in your services could benefit from AI. The second trend is called democratizing service design. Well, it's interesting that you use the word democratized service design because that is the language that we're using within my division of Capital One. Democratizing service design is about spreading the design process, tools and mindset throughout the whole organization. It's about letting people without the design background take ownership. If you want to design services that make a lasting impact and scale beyond all those labs, experiments and accelerators, we need to make service design practical on a day-to-day basis so that everyone can participate. And not just in a sprint, but as a long-term strategy. Mauritius Manaus already said it, every organization is already doing service design, just maybe not in the right way. Service domain logic today points clearly towards service design. At some point it's possible to say that even companies that don't know service design, they must be doing service design, although not in the better way. This means designers need to move beyond just designing services. They need to design organizations and the conditions in which scaling happens naturally. An easy first step is to get people familiar with the design language by showing them our tools and how they can directly benefit their work. The next step is to facilitate, guide and help them to get started, but always move out of their way to make sure ownership stays there. The third trend is called doing the right thing. In the last 10 episodes, a lot of guests have talked about companies that are asking the question, how is it that what we're doing, adding value to our customers and our business? Are we actually doing the right thing? People have something much, much, much bigger than us, bigger than us people who sell things to them. And we truly need to be there to facilitate and assist. And that can take a lot of different forms. Companies looking for ways to create value for their customers are coming to the conclusion that it's getting harder to innovate and create a competitive advantage on a single touch point level. They realize they need to take a look at their business from a more broad and end-to-end perspective. Going back to square one in order to answer some of these fundamental questions means that companies need to have a clear and compelling vision that guides them forward. A vision that goes beyond the single line of text. Something that the whole organization knows. This is why I'm here. We're trying to do that. It's not my little part. And it's not just the words that that top said. So how can companies act on this trend tomorrow? Well, start with the easy but often overlooked part. Sketch the end-to-end journey of your customer and have a conversation about where the real value is created. And the second thing is, as Jamie already mentioned, invest some time and effort into visualizing the vision and the purpose that drives everyone forward. A compelling vision as a part to align everyone within the company to do the right thing. So that's it. These are the three major trends that are shaping service design at this moment based on what we've learned in the last 10 episodes of the show. What do you consider the most important trend? Share your thoughts in the comments. We really get to design a better world. A few people get to say that. And as service designers, we get to say that. You can catch a new episode of the service design show every two weeks on Thursday. So if you enjoyed this episode and like to see more, be sure to subscribe and check out some of the past episodes. If you're curious what the trends will be in the next 10 episodes, keep watching.