Different organisations express this in different ways: a technology SaaS product through speed and clarity, a premium hotel app through a reserved pace and refinement, and a B2B IT platform through efficiency and trust. In each case, the interaction model, motion and behaviour must all align with brand to make an impact.
Organisations like Spotify, Waymo, Salesforce, Apple, Stripe and Slack build their brands like this.
The commercial impact is clear, too. McKinsey & Company found that businesses in the top quartile of design performance achieved 32% higher revenue growth and 56% higher total returns to shareholders compared to peers. Deloitte reports that customer-centric organisations are 60% more profitable than those that aren’t.
The tech shift: Interactions go multimodal
UX now spans voice, touch, text and a growing set of ambient inputs. Users will move between them without thinking, often within the same task.
This has expanded the role of interaction design beyond the screen and the keyboard. All platforms now need to interpret intent and respond appropriately depending on context – while still delivering a consistent brand.
Gartner predicts that 80% of software and applications will be multimodal by 2030, up from less than 10% in 2024.
This direction is being shaped by Jony Ive at OpenAI, whose new forms of AI-native hardware will move beyond traditional screen-based interaction and towards more embedded, natural forms.
User behaviour and expectation is already moving. PwC found that 71% of consumers prefer using voice assistants to search rather than typing in certain contexts.
The opportunity is in designing interaction models that hold together across these modes: experiences that respond clearly, provide immediate feedback and maintain a consistent sense of control, regardless of the type of engagement.
The behavioural shift: One experience, multiple platforms
Journeys now move across platforms. An experience can start on a phone, continue on a laptop and resolve in an app, television or product.
The opportunity for organisations is to design transitional experiences that are seamless. Each platform introduces different constraints, but the experience still needs to feel connected. Interaction patterns, motion behaviour and feedback loops must carry through in a way that feels familiar, even as the interface changes.
Google has reported that over 90% of users move between devices to complete a task, reflecting how common these transitions have become.
The commercial impact of managing this well is clear. McKinsey & Company has found that companies delivering strong omni-platform experiences achieve 10–15% revenue growth and 20% higher customer satisfaction. Deloitte similarly notes that organisations with mature cross-platform strategies retain 89% of customers on average, compared to 33% for those with weaker integration.
