Hardware Podcasts

209: Materials Research for Consumer Product Design

Product Startup · 12 Jan 2024 · 15m

AI in practice: one real use of AI described

What this episode covers

Ori Yudilevich, CTO of Materials Zone, explains why materials research is critical for hardware product development, comparing material selection to cooking ingredients where process and quality determine the final outcome. He highlights three dominant trends shaping modern product design: sustainability concerns regarding carbon footprints, supply chain disruptions forcing rapid adaptation to alternative materials, and strengthening global regulations on material safety. Yudilevich describes how his platform, Materials Zone, uses AI and machine learning to model complex material recipes, helping companies reduce time-to-market and costs by predicting outcomes rather than relying on expensive physical testing. The discussion emphasizes the need to balance front-end customer expectations for sustainable, safe products with back-end manufacturing realities like regional supply flexibility and regulatory compliance.

AI in practice

Where this conversation describes AI being used to build or deliver a product. Part of the AI in practice tracker.

DesignMaterial Zonereduces time to market substantially

The platform uses machine learning to build models that predict material behavior, allowing engineers to identify promising recipes without testing thousands of physical combinations, which reduces time to market and R&D costs.

“they can model the data. They can use modern AI technology, machine learning, to build models that can predict what happens in certain situations, right? So typically you would need now to try out maybe thousands of different recipes before you find what you need.”

Ori Yudilevich · Hear it at 10:39

Most relevant to

early-stage companies

Topics

Mentioned

Companies
Materials Zone, Mako Design, eBay, Deal Time

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