Adam Cutler

Led product strategy, positioning, experience design, design system, front-end delivery, and product operating model for a seven-person AI startup serving healthcare and education. Shifted the company from services-led delivery toward a customer-operated product built around provenance, policy, testing, approval, version history, and human control.

Built a shared visual and behavioral language for identifying AI, explaining its behavior, and preserving human control directly in IBM's open-source Carbon design system. Turned portfolio-wide AI guidance into reusable production components.

Established principles, ethics, methods, skills, and community for AI design before the LLM wave. Grew an internal guild from roughly two dozen volunteers to more than 250 and created a skills ladder to formalize the AI designer role.

Founding member of IBM Design and one of the first three IBM Distinguished Designers. Created IBM's Design for AI discipline, originated and directed Carbon for AI, co-created the IBM Design Thinking Loop, and led design and build-out of IBM Studios Austin.

Reframed a dense, workshop-dependent method into a plain-language digital practice designed to travel across roles, teams, and domains. Co-created the Loop and directed the story, content tone, visual system, animation, and digital delivery.

Shifted IBM software design from code-first consistency toward a flexible language based on shared principles, typography, iconography, color, and expression. Helped establish the conceptual foundation that later evolved through IBM Plex and Carbon.

Designed the flagship studio around movement and reconfiguration rather than fixed seating, turning the physical environment into part of IBM's design practice. Created a workplace studied by teams from companies including Google and Apple.

Translated the apprenticeship model of pediatric critical care into an asynchronous, collaborative digital learning platform that could work across unreliable connectivity and geographic constraints.

Created a repeatable eight-week model for moving from user understanding to interactive concept, vision blueprint, and implementation roadmap under deliberate time pressure.

Led information architecture for digital projects at iXL.

Served as Creative Director at Dialogos.

Worked as Creative Director at Eisaman Johns & Laws Advertising.

Bachelor of Science in Advertising and Psychology from Syracuse University, completed in 1992.