Adam Cutler
Adam Cutler is the Design Practices Director with IBM Design and one of the first three Distinguished Designers at IBM. He is responsible for the IBM Design Studio in Austin, TX. He is also responsible for the competency, culture and practices of design and designers at IBM. This includes IBM Design Thinking, the IBM Design Language and IBM Design Research.
Previously while at IBM Interactive, he was the Director of User Experience Design and helped to guide clients and internal initiatives in the creation of valuable, dynamic and effective user experiences. He has worked with many clients including OpenPediatrics for Boston Children’s Hospital, Nordea, The JFK Museum & Library, Liberty Mutual, Bank of America, Nationwide, Wachovia, L.L.Bean, State Street, American Express, IBM, Segway, Chubb Insurance and Tiffany & Co. among others.
Prior to joining IBM, Adam worked with Michael Jordan while at an advertising agency in Chicago, and helped to pioneer the first e-commerce transaction from outer space.
For more, keep up with Adam at ibm.com/design or on Twitter as @adam_cutler.
Presentations
Leadership By Design 2026
What’s Yours to Keep: Designing alongside AI without giving up the work that made you a designer.
You think AI is coming for design. I’m not going to tell you it isn’t; I’m going to tell you what it’s coming for and what it can’t touch. These are two very different piles, and the second one has your name on it.
The artifacts go in the first pile, because a model can produce the screens, the decks, and the prototypes, fast and almost good enough. The second pile holds the judgment that picks the right one, and judgment is a muscle: when you stop using, atrophies.
This talk gives you a test you can run tomorrow for sorting your own work into those piles, then gets practical about leading a mixed team of designers and agents. An LLM is an intern with infinite confidence and stamina and no taste. Somebody still has to know good from almost good, and that somebody is a designer.
Leadership By Design 2017: Prototypes, Process & Play
Scaling Design at IBM
Creating a sustainable culture of design at a company the size of IBM isn’t an overnight process. Learn how we’re scaling our design competency across our global footprint through our people, places and practices.
