Config India 2026: When everyone can make anything, how far can we take it?
FigmaFigmaKey takeaways
AI makes images and prototypes faster, but it cannot determine what matters or what people will experience. How far a creation goes depends on the maker’s point of view, judgment, and willingness to make and refine the details.
Start by experiencing the real world and framing questions beyond what a brief or dataset captures; use AI to explore possibilities, then test with people and feed what you learn into the next decision. Curiosity, attention to detail, and love for making and for people sustain the repeated work needed to move beyond a merely convincing first result.
Video Flow
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From improvised computers to immersive experiences
A love of making began with building computers from discarded parts and grew into teamLab’s immersive museums and digital products, created by specialists working across disciplines. Its apps serve everyday routines and have reached about 200 million downloads in Japan, whose population is about 122 million.
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Question the brief before making
A vending-machine project first raised the question of what innovation actually needed to change; a futuristic screen alone did not establish a meaningful improvement. The more consequential change was behind the machines: connecting them to an app so data could guide which drinks to stock, when, and in what quantities.
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Design relationships, not photo opportunities
At crowded masterpieces such as the Mona Lisa, visitors compete for a view or wait for a gap; teamLab instead asks how people’s presence can change the artwork and enrich one another’s experience. The design question becomes how to change relationships among people, rather than how to make an image shareable.
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A point of view opens up decisions
Design begins with what makers notice and care about, not with a known answer; each concrete choice exposes further questions, and quality depends on how deeply those questions are pursued. A prompt to fill a room with LEDs may produce a convincing image while leaving unresolved how light creates depth, movement, and a bodily experience.
- 0512:57
A usable map requires decisions beyond its appearance
A map with a floor plan, shop names, and a location marker may look complete without helping anyone navigate a real building. The Mitsui Shopping Park map required information from different systems to be brought together and decisions about how content changes across zoom levels.
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Bring embodied understanding into AI-assisted work
AI lacks much of the atmosphere, sensory experience, and emotional context that shape human choices, while people’s attachments and habits can be irrational. Effective work therefore starts by experiencing places and talking with people, frames questions around what matters, uses AI to explore possibilities, and tests those possibilities with people before deciding what to change next.
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Go deeper with curiosity and care
The closing principles are to stay curious about the world and people, keep discovering, and move from sentences and images to testable work and real experiences. AI can save time for deeper exploration, but makers still need to decide the details; love for making, people, and the world sustains that effort.
Tools & Resources
An immersive museum where visitors’ movement and the surrounding space affect what they see.
- 01From improvised computers to immersive experiences01:33
A teamLab museum identified as its largest at the time of the talk.
- 01From improvised computers to immersive experiences01:57
A teamLab museum identified as its newest, opened the previous year.
- 01From improvised computers to immersive experiences02:23
A coffee app designed to make a daily routine easier and offer changing discoveries.
- 01From improvised computers to immersive experiences03:39
Apps that make familiar Japan Post services easier to use.
- 01From improvised computers to immersive experiences04:09
A fan app intended to help people feel a connection with the band in everyday life.
- 01From improvised computers to immersive experiences04:37
Connected vending machines to an app that collected data to predict demand and guide stocking decisions.
- 01Question the brief before making08:03
An artwork used to contrast a brief about filling a room with LEDs against the many decisions required to shape an embodied experience.
- 01A point of view opens up decisions12:18
A mall map app built by integrating information from different systems and designing how map content changes as users zoom.
- 01A usable map requires decisions beyond its appearance13:31