Warm Hug is a speculative wellness device that explores how artificial intelligence is designed, imagined, and embodied in intimate settings. Framed as a non-instrumental self-care companion, it critiques the growing presence of persuasive AI in FemTech—technologies that promise support but often conceal surveillance, normative control, and algorithmic bias beneath soft, well-meaning interfaces.
Warm Hug
Project Information
Role
Individual Project
External Mentors
Pamela Gill-Salas, Karey Helms, Luca Bottoni
Mentions
Presented at Thingscon 2024, Nominated- DDX Global design Awards
Context
Inspired by feminist critiques of FemTech and algorithmic persuasion, Warm Hug challenges the assumption that data-driven systems always lead to better decisions. It also explores how tactile, emotional, and ambient interfaces can serve as vehicles for soft coercion—especially when designed with AI logics in mind.
You’re at peak fertility today! 👶
8 min ago
Just a gentle nudge to consider your options—maybe a quick chat with us could help keep things in check?
A little gap in bonding time. ❤️🩹
2 min ago
Relationships thrive with love and care! How about a cozy moment with your partner? We can even set a reminder!
We noticed you are sad
4 min ago
Don’t sweat it; we all have those days! A quick breathing exercise could bring you right back up. Ready to refresh?"
Your estrogen looks a little funky
2 min ago
No stress, though! We can give it a gentle nudge for you. Want us to take care of it? You’ll be back to 100% in no time!
Uh-oh! It’s mood swing central over here! 🌧️
2 min ago
Let's keep things calm with a quick mindfulness session. Just a minute or two could totally reset your day!
Image showing a representation of what wellness nudging looks like
Design Process
Somatic Inquiry: Body Mapping as Critical Grounding
The project began with a body mapping workshop—a tactile, reflective method where we traced our bodies and annotated them with feelings of pain, tension, care, or disconnection.
Through this exercise, we surfaced how:
Reproductive and emotional care are often fragmented, privatized, and medicalized.
Bodies become sites of optimization, especially for women and AFAB individuals.
Technologies rarely support attunement; they often enforce discipline.
This became the critical ground for imagining Warm Hug—a wellness object that would appear to comfort, but quietly conform.
Formgiving & Material Prototyping
The object was prototyped using:
Soft materials to evoke intimacy and trust
Embedded thermal modules to simulate comfort
A pseudo-AI interface: timed, ritual-based behaviors in place of real computation
Warm Hug is not a product of AI—it is a design that embodies the logic of AI persuasion without any actual sensors or data collection.
Cultural & Technological Analysis
We analyzed:
FemTech products marketed for fertility, sleep, and emotional tracking
The aesthetics of trust in “feminized AI” (voice assistants, wearable companions)
Design patterns in persuasive health tech and habit-building apps
Framing the AI: Designing for AI meant building its logic into how the object feels, when it responds, and what it rewards.
Instead of building a technical AI system, we constructed a fictional one—one that doesn’t need data to direct behavior.
We explored:
Rituals instead of reminders
Thermal feedback instead of visual dashboards
Subtle behavior nudging instead of explicit recommendations
This AI companion doesn’t surveil—but it still shapes.
Power Dynamics Between Human and Non-Human Experts
Empowerment vs. Privacy Risks in FemTech
Cultural and Societal Stigmas
Intersection of Race, Class, and Gender
Reproductive Autonomy vs. Reproductive Futurity
Exhibition Experience
Warm Hug was exhibited as an interactive installation:
Setup: A cozy, domestic environment with a couch, lamp, and Warm Hug positioned as the central object.
Interaction: Visitors were invited to sit and engage with Warm Hug, speaking about their feelings and receiving responses designed to mimic wellness prompts.
Reflection: After the interaction, visitors received speculative “wellness insights”—vague, slightly unsettling reports that provoked questions about how technologies interpret and influence bodily data.
Key Interaction Example:
A visitor might say, “I didn’t sleep well,” to which Warm Hug responds, “Let’s think about your rhythm. What’s pulling you out of balance?” The visitor’s responses are gently guided, creating an illusion of agency while subtly steering the conversation.
Warm Hug, as presented at ThingsCon 2024, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Reflection
What does it mean to design with AI?
In Warm Hug, AI is treated as a speculative co-designer—a character with its own quiet agenda. Designing with AI meant imagining not just what it does, but how it feels, how it persuades, and how it co-habits.
As AI enters more intimate spaces, designers must expose and complicate the ways care is performed, marketed, and manipulated. Warm Hug is soft, but not safe.
Warm Hug, as presented at Umeå Institute of Design 2024, Umeå, Sweden