AI personas in the room

Step-by-step plan

Step 1

Determine whether the assignment is suitable for assessment from multiple perspectives and not for full execution by AI. An assignment or project in which multiple interests or uncertainties come together is often suitable, such as an innovation project with sustainability and financial considerations, a societal issue with moral dilemmas, or a design in which ease of use and commercial feasibility clash.

The activity works best in groups of three to five students, in which each student deploys their own AI persona.

Step 2

Explain why working with AI personas is valuable: they help students look at their work from different perspectives, critically reflect on their own assumptions, and collaborate better in situations where consensus must be sought. Also discuss the ground rules, for example:

• each student receives or chooses one persona;
• a persona may confront the team, not dominate it;
• all interactions with AI are saved (prompt + response) for reflection;
• ethical boundaries: no insulting or discriminatory persona.

Step 3

This is the start of the actual activity.

Option A – Teacher provides personas to students in advance. 

Examples of personas you define yourself in advance:

• The Communicator: focuses on empathy, connection, and persuasiveness.
• The Innovator: wants to put practical solutions, innovation, and user experience centre stage.
• The Skeptic: asks critical questions about responsibility and impact.
• The Analyst: analyses options rationally and objectively, weighs pros and cons systematically.
• The Creative Thinker: stimulates the imagination, breaks patterns, and encourages looking at things differently.
  Or use De Bono's thinking hats as a systematic framework: White (facts), Red (feeling), Black (criticism), Yellow (positive), Green (creativity), Blue (process).

Option B – Students design their own personas.

Important: each student represents one persona, and these personas together form the 'virtual team' that serves as a sparring partner in the project. Encourage students to give the personas a name, background, and clear interests. Students use a prompt to define their AI sparring partner, for example: You are [Persona name], a [role/description: 1 sentence]. Your top 3 interests are: [interest 1], [interest 2], [interest 3]. Communication style: [short tone of voice]. As [Persona name], you assess and respond to ideas for [project description]. Name [x number] arguments for the ideas you have with at least [x number] sources. These are the preconditions of your persona: [x]. In this way, the student 'builds' their own AI sparring partner.

Step 4

Have students deploy their personas during the different phases of their project. Each student uses one persona as a starting point. By asking questions to this self-built persona, the student explores their needs and perspectives and then brings these insights into the project phase. In the ideation phase, the personas can contribute new angles and question existing ideas. In the research and design phase, they can help formulate relevant questions or assessment criteria. During the implementation and testing phase, the personas can act as critical assessors.

If desired, discuss together which AI prompts are suitable to let the persona 'speak' in the different phases, such as:

• What would [persona] think of this idea?
• What risks does [persona] see in this approach?
• What additional information would [persona] want to know before making a decision?

Step 5

Have students present their final product with a brief reflection on their experience with the personas.
For example, you can have them reflect on questions such as:

• Which persona had the greatest influence on your choices, and why?
• To what extent did the different personas help you think differently?
• How did you deal with conflicting advice from the personas?

The reflection helps students gain insight into their own thinking style and into the value of thinking from different perspectives.