We had the opportunity to work with Prof. Gerrit Baptist and Klea Schlimm from Bauhaus University Weimar on a student project. The project involved young product designers developing better product ideas with the help of AI personas.
Centigrade CEO Thomas Immich was recently invited to give a presentation at the AI Hub in Frankfurt. He talked about the tool LeanScope.ai and how it can be used to create AI personas that revolutionize product development by supporting users in user research. Klea Schlimm from Bauhaus-Universität Weimar approached him with the idea to make it a student project. Klea Schlimm is an artistic assistant at the Chair of Design and Management. Together with the support of Prof. Gerrit Baptist, Professor of Design and Management at Bauhaus-Universität Weimar, the project was realized in a very short time.
Dipl. Des. Klea Schlimm, Lecturer and art staff member at the Chair of Design and Management Bauhaus-Universität Weimar
„At the AI Hub Frankfurt, I attended Thomas’ presentation on AI personas and LeanScope’s data-based user research. I believed that the approaches presented were an excellent opportunity for our students to take a critical, reflective and practical look at modern AI software in the design process. It was great that we were able to implement the whole thing hands-on directly in our Product Design degree programme in the same year. Thanks to Thomas’ guest lecture and his insights from his work at Centigrade, the students received valuable impulses and were able to test the methods directly.“
Rethinking user research – with LeanScope.ai
LeanScope was the basis for the student project. The AI-powered management tool allows for the creation of true-to-life profiles of different users with a single query. In addition to socio-demographic information, tasks, goals, motivations, and frustrations are generated.
Any user research information can then be “added” to these initial proto-personas to continuously improve their plausibility. This is where generative AI and human-in-the-loop play together perfectly.
The Project
The project is part of the product design course. Product designers have to take a close look at their target group in order to design functional products, according to the idea of the Bauhaus. This means that user research is very important. This is where LeanScope comes in. Especially for a study project, it can be difficult to conduct “real” user research because it is extremely time consuming and potentially costly. Using LeanScope.ai, the students were able to create lifelike AI personas with realistic circumstances, problems, and desires, and design their products based on these personas. The hope is that this will lead to products that are better tailored to the realities of people’s lives.
An exciting feature of LeanScope comes into play here: these personas can be communicated with in real time via chat. This means that students can get feedback and ask questions during the design phase.
Prof. Gerrit Babtist, Professor Design and Management Bauhaus-University Weimar
„Regardless of what kind of design we bring into the world: It’s always about reaching people and understanding their needs in depth. It was therefore all the more enriching to see how advanced approaches such as AI personas and tools like LeanScope connect designers even more closely with their users through generative AI. Thomas Immich’s presentation provided inspiring insights into his extensive expertise in the field of user-centred AI applications.“
What’s next?
The project is still ongoing and we are very excited about the results and look forward to sharing them with you soon! We are grateful for the collaboration with Klea Schlimm and Prof. Gerrit Baptist and for getting the project off the ground so quickly.
Given that Frankfurt will be the World Design Capital in 2026, it’s a funny coincidence that we met at the AI Hub in Frankfurt. A great start for 2025/2026, we think.
