The Future of BMW Design: A New Evolution

BMW brought a small group of journalists to Santa Monica to mark the 50th anniversary of Designworks’ presence in the United States, and the highlight of the day was a roundtable with Adrian van Hooydonk, Senior Vice President of BMW Group Design, and Julia de Bono, CEO of Designworks. The conversation touched a wide range of topics, from the upcoming Neue Klasse products to the pressure to adapt to digital life inside the car, and how new tools—especially AI—are reshaping their workflows. There was also a short Q&A which allowed media to ask other questions as well.

The Digital World Inside The Cabin

One of the first subjects raised was the increasing digitization of BMW interiors. With the upcoming iX3 and the broader Neue Klasse family moving toward a cleaner, more software-driven layout, there has been speculation that BMW might eventually eliminate physical buttons altogether. Van Hooydonk shut that down early.

“The car is not completely switchless,” he said, explaining that BMW deliberately avoided a fully screen-only cockpit. “We didn’t go completely radical. There are still switches in the center console.” He described how BMW analyzed the controls customers reach for most often and designed the interior around those recurring habits. Some of those controls remain physical by necessity, while others appear as fixed digital elements that never move within the interface.

De Bono added that this is consistent with all the industries Designworks serves, from aviation to farming equipment. “For any human-centric design, something haptic—something that engages all senses—will always remain,” she said, emphasizing that tactility is not a nostalgic idea but an ergonomic one.

A Smartphone-Like Experience?

The tension between digital familiarity and safe driving is something BMW has been wrestling with for years, especially as consumer behavior becomes increasingly shaped by smartphones. Van Hooydonk said that the design team has spent a long time examining whether a car’s interface should behave more like a phone or maintain its own logic.

“Car companies come from a mechanical world,” he explained. “Tech companies come from touch and voice. Five years ago the question was: which logic should win?” The answer eventually took shape in the Panoramic Vision Display of the Neue Klasse. Rather than turning the dashboard into a giant tablet, BMW split the digital environment into two zones—critical driving information directly in front of the driver, and customizable widgets positioned farther to the right. “In the iX3, customers can configure apps like on a mobile device,” he said, “but the driving environment still works for you.” The goal was to acknowledge how people interact with technology today without surrendering the clarity needed in a moving vehicle.

The Future of Apple Car Play and Android Auto

That naturally led to a question about Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, especially as some automakers have recently moved away from supporting them. Van Hooydonk was direct: BMW isn’t abandoning CarPlay. “We offer CarPlay,” he said. “We want customers to use it if they want. Half our customers have an iPhone.”

However, he also made it clear that BMW wants its own system to remain the better choice for understanding the car’s capabilities, particularly when it comes to electric vehicles. “Our UI will always be more connected to the car,” he explained. “An electric BMW knows your charge state and your next charging point, and it guides you seamlessly.” The message wasn’t about competition with Apple so much as the reality that the car must understand things a phone cannot.

AI’s Role in Car Design