Leonardo Giusti: Archetype AI's co-founder on physical AI and the limits of the chatbot
From Design Better by The Curiosity Department, sponsored by Wix Studio
March 25, 2026 · 29 min · Season 12 · Episode 170
About this episode
Leonardo Giusti discusses his unique approach to AI and design, emphasizing the importance of metaphors in shaping technology.
Leonardo Giusti has spent his career in the spaces between disciplines — between art and science, between research and product, between the physical world and the digital one. It’s not a conventional design path, but it’s one that led him to work most designers never get near. This is a preview of a premium episode. Find the full episode on our Substack: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/leonardo-giusti Leonardo is the co-founder and Chief Design Officer of Archetype AI, a company building foundation models trained not on text or images, but on the continuous stream of sensor data flowing from the real world, like factories, power grids, and city intersections. Before that, he spent nearly seven years at Google’s Advanced Technology and Projects group, where he led design on Project Soli — a miniature radar chip that taught devices to understand human gesture and presence — and Project Jacquard, which wove interactivity into everyday objects like Levi’s jackets and YSL bags. He holds a Ph.D. in human-computer interaction from the University of Florence and spent years as a postdoctoral researcher at MIT’s Design Lab. He’s also filed more than 30 patents (!). What makes Leonardo’s…
People in this episode
Guest: Leonardo Giusti
Topics covered
- AI
- design
- human-computer interaction
- technology
Keywords
- Archetype AI
- Project Soli
- Project Jacquard
- sensor data
Mentioned in this episode
Products: Project Soli, Project Jacquard, YSL, Archetype AI
Books & works: Ph.D., Ph
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