CHI collaborated with CA Designform to explore how Hybrid Intelligence (HI) can be applied in a creative and digitally mature organisation. The case shows how AI is integrated into workflows, strategy, and culture to enhance creative production while maintaining human judgment and client interaction as the core of value creation.

The collaboration originated from a strategic challenge: the rapid improvement in quality and accessibility of generative AI raised fundamental questions about CA Designform’s long-term relevance and business model. The company works with digital visualisation, animation, and concept development for industrial clients — replacing physical production setups (photoshoots, on-location logistics) with high-realism digital solutions. They had worked with AI tools well before the generative AI wave, but the pace of change demanded a more deliberate response.

Crucially, AI was not treated as a technical or IT initiative. It was raised at board level and framed as a governance and risk management question, placed alongside structural business risks such as cyber threats and market disruption. This governance framing set the stage for a genuinely strategic engagement with Hybrid Intelligence rather than ad hoc tool adoption.

Following board-level discussions, CHI was invited in to present, run workshops with leadership, and support what the company explicitly described as an ambition to “disrupt ourselves” before being disrupted by others.

Hybrid Intelligence was operationalised by mapping the company’s five most resource-intensive workflows and analysing each step-by-step. For each sub-task, the core question was: where does relevant contextual knowledge remain embedded in human practice and client relationships, and where has it been sufficiently codified for AI to handle reliably?

This directly reflects the prediction–judgment frontier as defined in the HI Manifesto: the boundary is not fixed by task type or cognitive category, but by which contextual knowledge has been made operationally available to machine systems within a given socio-technical setting. At CA Designform, AI handles generation, variation, and exploration, the prediction side. Humans retain responsibility for framing, creative direction, client sparring, and final commitment, the judgment side. As Carsten put it: “It is not manual work or AI work. It is hybrid.”

The case also illustrates the principle of human-premium in action. As generative AI becomes more powerful and accessible, the scarcest and most differentiated resource is not the ability to generate imagery, but the ability to interpret a client’s needs, provide creative counsel, and co-develop solutions through ongoing dialogue. CA Designform explicitly positions this as their competitive core: “The creative value lies in the sparring with the client. ChatGPT cannot do that.”

Organisationally, the transformation was supported by active work on psychological safety and shared language. Employees were introduced to the concepts of prediction, judgment, and hybrid work, not as technical jargon, but as a practical vocabulary for navigating AI adoption without anxiety. This reflects the HI Manifesto’s emphasis on the organisational level of HI: building willingness and capacity across the workforce, not just deploying tools. The cultural framing was deliberate: AI does not take jobs, but employees who do not engage with it risk being overtaken.

The 3-step workflow shows how CA Designform operationalises Hybrid Intelligence: humans frame the persona and narrative direction, while AI supports generation, variation and integration into CGI production.

The work enables CA Designform to move faster and explore more options without sacrificing creative quality or client relevance, keeping human judgment at the moments that matter most. Competitive advantage comes not from AI alone, but from how it is combined with firm-specific expertise, client dialogue, and organisational learning. The company’s monthly monitoring practice continuously asking “how do we stay relevant?” reflects this: the prediction–judgment frontier must be actively managed, not assumed stable.

Carsten’s advice to others captures the underlying principle: start culturally, not technically. Psychological safety and shared language must come before tooling. Otherwise AI adoption bypasses rather than strengthens human judgment.

A natural next step is FERC (Frame–Explore–Refine–Commit), which would formalise what CA Designform already practises intuitively, making the prediction–judgment split explicit, trainable, and transferable across the organisation.

The outcome is not AI-only production, but a hybrid production model where AI expands creative possibilities while human expertise safeguards product integrity, brand fit and client relevance.

This case illustrates Hybrid Intelligence as a strategic and organisational capability, not just a tool or workflow.

AI is embedded through structured interaction with human judgment, supported by shared language (prediction, judgment, hybrid) and a strong cultural focus on experimentation and psychological safety. This enables employees to engage with AI without fear, ensuring adoption across the organisation.

The case also highlights that Hybrid Intelligence depends on leadership and governance. By addressing AI at board level and linking it to risk management, CA Designform ensures that AI is integrated into long-term strategy rather than treated as a temporary innovation.

Finally, the case demonstrates that competitive advantage lies not in using AI alone, but in how it is combined with human creativity, client interaction, and organisational learning. Hybrid Intelligence becomes a way to continuously adapt and remain relevant in a changing environment.