Present the refresher

Co-Designing and Pursuing Purposeful AI

Why we are here

Digital Futures Symposium 2026

Co-Designing and Pursuing Purposeful AI

Pick a problem, collaborate with your group towards a solution, and make a commitment.

Gambit. Presented by the McMaster Digital Transformation Research Centre with the Smith AI Product Community of Practice (CoP) at Smith School of Business, Digital Futures Symposium 2026, Day 1, 5 August 2026.

Co-Designing and Pursuing Purposeful AI

Why now

The stakes

Canada does not need another room full of AI ideas. It needs people willing to carry the right problems forward.

AI transformation is not only a technology problem. It asks leaders to choose where change matters, bring the right people around it, and create the conditions for action. Today brings the right people around one important problem and ends with an accountable commitment.

An important problem brings people together for an accountable commitment.

Co-Designing and Pursuing Purposeful AI

Why now

Why Gambit

A workshop should create movement, not just a beautiful record of the conversation.

Gambit replaces the infinite canvas with a guided path: purposeful constraints, collaboration, Socratic AI lenses, and a visible commitment. It can run locally or on infrastructure you control, with workshop data in a local database and AI requests sent using your own Anthropic credentials.

Gambit turns an unconstrained canvas into a guided path with Socratic lenses, deployment control, and one accountable commitment.

Co-Designing and Pursuing Purposeful AI

The product thesis

Why the name

A gambit is a bounded bet with learning attached.

A gambit is not certainty. It is a deliberate move made before every answer is known. Name the people, the first trigger, and the evidence that would change your mind. If the move fails, the learning still has an owner.

A bounded bet names the next move, the people who carry it, the trigger that starts it, and the evidence that could change it.

Co-Designing and Pursuing Purposeful AI

The product thesis

Work with the situation

Different problems need different next moves.

Match the move to the situation. Simple work can be categorized. Complicated work can be analyzed. Complex work needs a safe-to-learn probe. Chaotic work calls for decisive action. When the situation itself is unclear, begin by making sense of it.

Cynefin distinguishes simple, complicated, complex, chaotic, and disorder contexts. The second reveal adds a response loop for each context.

Co-Designing and Pursuing Purposeful AI

The method

From question to story

The workshop starts the journey. The commitment carries it beyond the room.

Today takes the group through the whole Double Diamond, from framing a question to making a commitment. Then the journey continues: test and learn at three, six, and nine months; share the story at twelve months and DFS 2027.

Today takes the group through Discover, Define, Develop, and Deliver before a commitment is made. The IDEO learning journey then continues through testing at three, six, and nine months, before the group shares its story at twelve months and DFS 2027.

Co-Designing and Pursuing Purposeful AI

What you will do

The Gambit workflow

Your group’s thinking shapes the next move.

Each person enters notes from their device. Those notes become shared context for the group’s workflow: lenses widen the thinking in Discover and Develop; consolidation, construction, and gates help the group converge in Define and Deliver; Commit turns today’s choice into a twelve-month path for change.

20 minutes

Discover

Enter what your group sees. Use a lens to open a better question, then keep adding notes in your own words.

10 minutes

Define

Consolidate the notes, construct one problem statement, challenge it through the gates, then carry it into Develop.

22 minutes

Develop

Enter possible responses. Use the lenses to widen the solution space, then capture the ideas worth carrying forward.

10 minutes

Deliver

Consolidate the strongest directions, construct the next move, challenge it through the gates, then carry it into Commit.

18 minutes

Commit

Name innovation champions, the first trigger, and the evidence path. Then build awareness, desire, knowledge, ability, and reinforcement with partners over the next twelve months.

During Discover, notes entered by the group form context for four lenses. The selected Skeptic lens generates a question for the group to discuss.

During Define, notes entered by the group are consolidated, constructed into a problem statement, checked through four lenses, and carried forward.

During Develop, notes entered by the group form context for four lenses. The selected Futurist lens generates a question for the group to discuss.

During Deliver, notes entered by the group are consolidated, constructed into a next move, checked through four lenses, and carried forward.

A phone showing the commitment wall: each group’s commitment listed with the names of the people carrying it attached.

The five phases in order. Discover: Enter what your group sees. Use a lens to open a better question, then keep adding notes in your own words. Define: Consolidate the notes, construct one problem statement, challenge it through the gates, then carry it into Develop. Develop: Enter possible responses. Use the lenses to widen the solution space, then capture the ideas worth carrying forward. Deliver: Consolidate the strongest directions, construct the next move, challenge it through the gates, then carry it into Commit. Commit: Name innovation champions, the first trigger, and the evidence path. Then build awareness, desire, knowledge, ability, and reinforcement with partners over the next twelve months. Notes from the group become the context for lenses and convergence checks; Commit records the next move.

Co-Designing and Pursuing Purposeful AI

Before you start

Five things to remember

Use the structure. Keep the judgment.

The rules are simple: protect sensitive information, think together before asking AI, use its output as provocation rather than verdict, match the next move to the evidence, and leave with named people and a first trigger.

01 Protect Keep confidential and proprietary information out.
02 Think Speak together before asking AI.
03 Challenge Use AI for patterns and provocation, never a verdict.
04 Match Learn, convene, test, or deliver as the evidence allows.
05 Name Leave with people and a first trigger.

Five operating rules: Keep confidential and proprietary information out. Speak together before asking AI. Use AI for patterns and provocation, never a verdict. Learn, convene, test, or deliver as the evidence allows. Leave with people and a first trigger.

Co-Designing and Pursuing Purposeful AI

The leading minds that informed the design of this workshop.

Full references and deep links for the methods, evidence, and product principles used in this opening.

Full reference list in APA 7, linked to each source where it resolves.

Design-thinking refresher

Co-Designing and Pursuing Purposeful AI

Canada does not need another room full of AI ideas. It needs people willing to carry the right problems forward.

A workshop should create movement, not just a beautiful record of the conversation.

A gambit is a bounded bet with learning attached.

Different problems need different next moves.

The workshop starts the journey. The commitment carries it beyond the room.

Your group’s thinking shapes the next move.

Use the structure. Keep the judgment.

The leading minds that informed the design of this workshop.

Start the day-of cut