"We have the opportunity to change the way we use computers" - Lenovo's design chief on AI, modularity, and the death of the keyboard

A blond long-haired white man with dark-rimmed glasses in the centre of a composite image, with a laptop on a red table to the left, and a rollable laptop with a very tall screen on the right.

What does it mean to design a laptop in an era when the very concept of a laptop may be obsolete within a decade? As artificial intelligence rewires the relationship between humans and their devices, the designers tasked with building tomorrow's hardware face a challenge unlike any before: creating objects for experiences that do not yet exist.

In a wide-ranging conversation, Brian Leonard, Vice President of Design at Lenovo, spoke candidly about the seismic shifts reshaping his field, from foldable screens and modular hardware to the quiet death of the purely software-driven interface.