Audi uses AI power to explore wheel design opportunities

The Audi design department is using a proprietary software piece called FelGAN to produce AI-generated images of wheels and come up with their own design ideas based on them.

Keeping the design team safely away from creative block or self-repetition can be challenging in our world oversaturated with all kinds of designs. AI can help greatly in this regard by suggesting novel, unconventional solutions or unexpected combinations of older designs. At this moment, the software works exclusively with wheels, but its future iterations will aim to assist the other departments of Audi as well.

The approach implemented utilizes two competing algorithms. A generator sketches up a bunch of random images, while a discriminator browses through them and compares them to actual wheel photos to identify each picture. After a certain number of iterations, the generator will ultimately reach a level of realism so high that the discriminator will no longer be able to tell them from actual photos.

The purpose of FelGAN is not to replace people, but only to assist them, Audi assures us. All design finalization, prototype development and other nuanced works will still be performed by qualified professionals. They will also be able to guide the software by uploading the images they would like to use to base their next design on.