Andrea Manciaracina and Salvatore Di Dio
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(https://doi.org/10.55612/s-5002-068-005)
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Abstract
Social innovation is a collaborative process that addresses complex problems through recombining resources, constructing networks, and adopting design tools. In this context, generative and conversational AI supports data analysis, knowledge synthesis and the production of operational toolkits. At the same time, the metaverse enables immersive, inclusive co-design spaces that overcome geographical and temporal barriers. The article analyses the potential of integrating artificial intelligence, the metaverse and co-design practices in social innovation. It discusses empirical experiences conducted in Milano and Palermo, developed in the OSMOSI action research project. It highlights opportunities and critical issues in the use of emerging technologies in urban regeneration and cultural innovation processes. It proposes an application protocol. This replicable protocol integrates digital tools and participatory methodologies, with implications for researchers, policy makers, and local actors.
Keywords: Artificial intelligence, Metaverse, Co-design, Social Innovation.
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Summary generated by AI
The paper argues that AI, the metaverse and co-design should not be treated as separate tools, but as an integrated methodological system for social innovation.
The main idea is that generative, interpretative and conversational AI can support the analysis of complex data, the production of visual and narrative materials, and access to knowledge. At the same time, metaverse environments can create immersive co-design spaces where people can participate beyond geographical and temporal barriers.
The goal is not simply to use new technologies in participatory processes. It is to define a replicable protocol that helps researchers, designers, institutions and local actors manage complex urban regeneration and cultural innovation processes.
1. Why social innovation needs new design tools
The article starts from the idea that social innovation addresses complex problems by recombining existing resources, building networks and involving different actors in collaborative processes.
Traditional co-design remains important because it allows citizens, users and stakeholders to participate directly in defining problems, imagining solutions and testing possibilities. However, contemporary social challenges are increasingly complex, distributed and data-rich.
For this reason, the paper argues that emerging technologies can support co-design by making participation more inclusive, by helping researchers interpret large amounts of information, and by creating new environments for collective experimentation.
2. What AI and the metaverse add to co-design
The paper identifies AI and the metaverse as two complementary technological fields.
AI can support co-design in different ways:
• Interpretative AI
It helps analyse interviews, surveys, workshop notes and open-ended responses. Its role is to identify recurring themes, conceptual clusters and patterns within large qualitative datasets.
• Generative AI
It helps transform textual and visual documentation into communication materials, icons, future scenarios and visual toolkits.
• Conversational AI
It makes research data accessible through natural-language interfaces, allowing users to ask questions and receive synthetic answers.
The metaverse adds a different contribution. It creates immersive digital spaces where users can explore environments, interact through avatars, leave comments, discuss possibilities and co-create maps or scenarios.
3. The OSMOSI case study
The article tests these ideas through the OSMOSI project, focused on socio-cultural hybrid spaces in Lombardy and Sicily.
These spaces combine cultural, social, educational and entrepreneurial functions. They often occupy disused or underused buildings and support urban regeneration, social inclusion and cultural innovation.
The project analysed more than one hundred hybrid spaces through questionnaires and interviews. It also developed two pilot projects:
• Open Casello in Milan, a former toll booth transformed into an urban laboratory connected to youth networks and associations.
• Museo delle Città del Mondo in Palermo, located in the former Convent of the Crociferi and developed as an intercultural platform and cultural production centre.
The research process was organised into three main phases: mapping, co-design and dissemination.
4. How the protocol works
The proposed protocol integrates AI and metaverse tools across the three phases.
In the mapping phase, interviews and surveys collect qualitative and quantitative data about hybrid spaces. AI supports the interpretation of this material by reducing fragmentation, identifying recurring patterns and producing usable summaries.
In the co-design phase, workshops involve citizens, institutions, cultural organisations and local stakeholders. AI helps systematise the contributions that emerge from these activities.
In the metaverse phase, the OSMOSI Digital Area reconstructs the two pilot projects in 3D. Users can visit the spaces, move as avatars, access information, leave notes and participate in discussions.
In the dissemination phase, conversational AI and generative AI help transform the research results into accessible interfaces and replicable toolkits. The OSMOSI chatbot, for example, allows users to query the project database through natural language.
5. What the protocol enables
The protocol makes the research process more accessible, more scalable and more easily transferable.
It allows large and fragmented datasets to become more readable. It helps non-expert users access research findings. It supports the creation of visual and narrative materials that communicate the identity of hybrid spaces. It also creates participatory environments where people who are geographically distant can still engage in the design process.
So the contribution of AI and the metaverse is not only technical. These tools reshape how participation, interpretation, communication and dissemination are organised.
6. Important warning
The paper does not present technology as a neutral or automatically positive solution.
It stresses that AI can flatten complex narratives if human interpretation is removed. LLM-based synthesis may privilege what is frequent or linguistically visible rather than what is socially important.
The metaverse can also create new exclusions. Participation may depend on access to devices, internet connection, digital skills, language, accessibility needs or comfort with immersive environments.
For this reason, the authors argue that AI and metaverse tools should complement, not replace, traditional co-design practices such as interviews, workshops, direct observation and human facilitation.
Main takeaway
The paper’s main contribution is a replicable GenAI and metaverse protocol for co-design in social innovation. The protocol shows how participatory practices, artificial intelligence and immersive environments can work together to support urban regeneration and cultural innovation.
The broader vision is that future co-design processes should become augmented systems: still grounded in human participation, but supported by digital tools that expand access, interpretation, collaboration and dissemination.
In one sentence:
Move from “using technology inside co-design” to “building integrated participatory ecosystems where AI, metaverse environments and human facilitation work together for social innovation.”
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