Is Service Design Dying Or About To Have A Renaissance?
Service design. For years, it’s been the discipline that glued CX together and bridged the messy gap between digital products and operational reality. But lately, I’ve noticed something...
Leaders aren’t talking about ‘service design’ anymore. Instead, we hear terms such as experience strategy, journey orchestration or management, business design, and transformation design.
It makes me wonder:
Is service design about to have its renaissance or does it need a rebrand to stay relevant?
Why Service Design Might Be Heading for a Renaissance
1. Complexity is peaking.
Organisations are realising that product design alone can’t solve systemic challenges. Fragmented journeys, operational silos, and disconnected digital initiatives are costing millions in lost efficiency and customer frustration.
2. Business models are shifting.
AI, automation, and platform ecosystems are redefining how value is delivered. Designing screens is no longer enough – we need to design flows, services, and systems that adapt and scale.
3. Leaders want outcomes, not artefacts.
It’s no longer enough to map journeys and blueprint services. Leaders want design to drive measurable commercial and operational impact.
But… It Might Need a Rebrand
Because here’s the tension.
1. ‘Service design’ is still ambiguous.
For many executives, it still conjures images of sticky notes and journey maps rather than integrated systems that drive business growth.
2. It’s been overshadowed by product design and UX.
While product designers have moved closer to agile delivery and measurable impact, service design risks being seen as conceptual, disconnected, or too slow.
3. Consulting language is overtaking design language.
Consultancies are repositioning service design under banners that speak directly to business priorities and executive agendas. This forms a powerful signal, given executives are the target market for big consultancies.
What Are Consultancies Calling This Work?
Here’s how major players are positioning service design today:
Experience Strategy / Experience Design
Accenture Song, BCG X and EY
Connecting customer, employee, and business experiences to strategic goals. Positioned as upstream consulting, not just implementation.
Business Design
IDEO and Fjord
Integrating service design with business models and operating models to create viable, feasible, and desirable offerings from concept to scale.
Service Transformation / Transformation Design
McKinsey, BCG and PwC
Embedding service design within organisational transformation programs, addressing governance, processes, technology, and people systems.
Capability Design / Organisation Design
Deloitte Digital, PwC and EY
Designing new organisational capabilities and ways of working, often tied to operating model redesign and change management.
Journey Orchestration / Experience Orchestration
Publicis Sapient
Real-time service delivery, integrating data, tech, and design to orchestrate seamless customer journeys.
Human-Centred Transformation / Design-Led Transformation
IBM iX, Deloitte and Capgemini
Shifting from service design to design as a transformation method, reshaping organisations at their core. Still flying the HCD banner.
The Shift? Why Service Design Will Be Critical in the Age of AI
As businesses scale AI implementation, service design becomes even more essential.
Here’s why:
1. Designing hybrid human-AI systems.
AI isn’t replacing humans; it’s becoming a co-agent alongside them. Service designers will:
Map ecosystems where humans and AI interact seamlessly.
Define when AI supports, augments, or replaces human tasks.
Ensure AI interventions are intentional, empathetic, and aligned to brand values.
2. Building trust and transparency.
Trust is the biggest barrier to AI adoption. Service designers:
Craft touchpoints that build confidence in AI decisions and recommendations.
Design communication flows that ensure clarity and transparency, mitigating fears of automation.
Consider emotional and relational impacts on customers and employees.
3. Reimagining service delivery models.
AI creates new possibilities:
24/7 personalised support via conversational AI.
Proactive interventions with predictive analytics.
Automations that reduce cost-to-serve while improving experiences.
Service designers ensure these are integrated meaningfully, not bolted on as features.
4. Balancing efficiency with humanity.
AI brings efficiency, but customers still crave human connection, care, and nuance. Service design ensures:
AI handles speed, scale, and data-driven tasks.
Humans focus on complex, emotional, or trust-building moments.
The overall service remains cohesive, ethical, and human-centred.
5. Enabling organisational readiness.
Service design considers:
Employee experience and workflows impacted by AI.
Training and change management to enable humans to work effectively alongside AI.
Policies, governance, and ethical frameworks for responsible AI deployment.
So… What Does That Mean For Practitioners?
Service design will have its renaissance. But it may not be called ‘service design’.
It might re-emerge under:
Experience strategy
Business design
Service transformation
Or it could reclaim its original promise:
“Designing services that create mutual value for people and business.”
Final Thought
If you’re a service designer or design leader today, ask yourself:
How is your discipline positioned in your organisation?
Does your language reflect its true impact?
Are you speaking in terms your executives value and prioritise?
Because in the end, it’s not about the label – it’s about the influence and impact you create.
What do you think?
Is service design about to have its renaissance – or does it need a rebrand to survive?
Think about the renaissance UX design has enjoyed under modern product management.
Back in the dark ages of waterfall, UX was bloated, sprawling, messy, semi-improvisational field. Much of it was highly inefficient groping about in undefined spaces, seeking conceptual clarity and order. Now that kind of work is done by product managers, in a far more linear, strategic and analytic manner. And UX has benefitted -- becoming far more streamlined, standardized, professionalized and optimized for rapid release cycles.
That is the kind of renaissance service designers can look forward to. Service designers will have a clearly defined place with clearly defined activities and outputs within a larger service management or journey management team.
Great analysis and collation of labels, names, intentions- short but thought provoking, thanks!