Ila Colombo

Ila Colombo is a former athlete turned award-winning creative director, AI researcher, design strategist and artist. Colombo is co-director of Ross Lovegrove Studio and CEO and co-founder of DEOND, a Dubai-based practice pioneering AI-driven design, R&D and 3D-printed architecture for adaptive, circular built environments. She founded DREAMVISION AI, a startup that transforms augmented creative workflows for creative teams, designers, artists and studios worldwide.

With more than a decade spanning design, art, architecture and technology, Colombo's work sits at the intersection of generative AI, spatial computing, sound and advanced fabrication, creating design-art installations, modular architectural systems and emotionally intelligent sonic experiments that explore new possibilities in human-machine collaboration.

Colombo co-authored the "AI for Creative Industries" report with the Dubai Future Foundation and the Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution, and collaborated with Google DeepMind, contributing insights for the development of Nano Banana. Her ongoing research examines the practical and philosophical dimensions of generative AI across multimodal creative workflows.

Colombo has spoken at Art Dubai 2024, Dubai Future Forum 2024, and SXSW 2025 on hybrid intelligence, team training, and ethical frameworks for emerging creative practice. She is a member of RIBA and the Architecture Program Advisory Board at the American University in Dubai, and contributes internationally as a lecturer and thought leader shaping how the creative industries prepare for an AI-integrated future.