Abstract
As Artificial Intelligence (AI) becomes embedded in design education and practice, global experts highlight a key challenge: preparing design students to engage with AI responsibly and contextually. This paper explores how liberal education’s interdisciplinary approach builds contextual understanding for designers to leverage AI tools effectively. Informed by the philosophy of an Indian design school that is rooted in liberal education, along with insights from global design experts, the study introduces a conceptual model: CI-AID (Contextual Intelligence for AI in Design). CI-AID extends on the traditional double diamond, where interdisciplinary knowledge enables a comprehensive discovery of the context that the design problem lies within. It illustrates the role of a liberal approach in augmenting divergent thinking, and thus building deeper contextual intelligence. Ultimately, the paper elucidates how such intelligence guides designers toward more situated and deliberate engagements with AI, and can transform AI-driven design practice toward more thoughtful and enduring outcomes.
Keywords
design education, contextual intelligence, liberal education, interdisciplinary learning
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2026.545
Citation
Kundal, A., Shrivastav, S., and Mangwani, T. (2026) Contextual intelligence for AI in design: A liberal education lens, in Simeone, L., Gray, C. M., Verhoeven, A., de Götzen, A., Bakırlıoğlu, Y., Zohar, H., Stead, M., and Buwert, P. (eds.), DRS2026: Edinburgh, 8–12 June, Edinburgh, United Kingdom. https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2026.545
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Included in
Contextual intelligence for AI in design: A liberal education lens
As Artificial Intelligence (AI) becomes embedded in design education and practice, global experts highlight a key challenge: preparing design students to engage with AI responsibly and contextually. This paper explores how liberal education’s interdisciplinary approach builds contextual understanding for designers to leverage AI tools effectively. Informed by the philosophy of an Indian design school that is rooted in liberal education, along with insights from global design experts, the study introduces a conceptual model: CI-AID (Contextual Intelligence for AI in Design). CI-AID extends on the traditional double diamond, where interdisciplinary knowledge enables a comprehensive discovery of the context that the design problem lies within. It illustrates the role of a liberal approach in augmenting divergent thinking, and thus building deeper contextual intelligence. Ultimately, the paper elucidates how such intelligence guides designers toward more situated and deliberate engagements with AI, and can transform AI-driven design practice toward more thoughtful and enduring outcomes.