The Cosy Futures Creator (CFC) is an interactive tool that helps users imagine their ideal daily lives—their cosy futures—and explore how they can individually and collectively work towards making them a reality. At the same time, it serves as a powerful engagement tool for media houses, helping them strengthen their relationship with young target groups.

In our interview at the conclusion of MIZ funding, project lead Nour Attalla explains how the CFC works, how it can help media houses build stronger relationships with their audiences, and how the tool aims to turn future anxiety into empowerment.

Nour Attalla presenting the Cosy Futures Creator at MIZ Innovation Pitch #7 | © MIZ Babelsberg / Gino Giove

„We wanted to find a way to allow media houses to discuss the future in a more optimistic way, and help audiences discover how we want to live in the future."

Dear Nour, what motivated you to create the Cosy Futures Creator?

Nour Attalla: As a team of Gen-Zers, we are worried about the future, and us and our friends are overwhelmed by the amount of negative news online. In response, we wanted to find a way to allow media houses to discuss the future in a more optimistic way, and help audiences discover how we want to live in the future, and what we can do to make this a reality.

How would you explain the Cosy Futures Creator to someone who doesn’t know the tool yet?

Nour: Cosy Futures Creator is a future imagination tool. You step out of your day-to-day reality and imagine your ideal normal day in a sustainable world. Then, the tool helps provide you customised resources, both future tips and articles, to help you learn more and plan concrete action.

Our goal was to seamlessly integrate the CFC into your online news consumption. For this, the tool had to be easy to use and engaging. Because CFC provides you tips along the way, you don’t need any previous knowledge to use it. And its game-like flow with a personal future profile at the end means it’s actually a fun and rewarding way to spend 5 to 10 minutes on the train on your way to work.

Screenshot of the Cosy Futures Creator. With the interactive future imagination tool, users can imagine their ideal daily lives and better understand how to work towards making them a reality.

What technical components were developed during the project, and how is AI integrated into your tool?

Nour: The entire CFC, from the quiz-like user-interface to the algorithm curating articles and tips has been created from scratch. Our initial prototype has an animated, solarpunk aesthetic, with a robot providing you tips. But, the model can easily be configured for a more serious aesthetic, to cater to different partners’ needs.

AI is used to create your personalised cosy future profile. An LLM uses your inputs to tell you a short story of your future day, and gives you tips for action. Our AI model also finds matching articles from our partner media house’s database for further reading.

„Online, Gen-Zers are moving away from quality journalism to more engaging, personalised, and conversational alternatives on social media and Large Language Models like Chat-GPT."

Who is the target audience for the Cosy Futures Creator, and why did you choose to reach them with an AI-powered interactive tool?

Nour: The target audience is Gen-Zers. Online, this group is moving away from quality journalism to more engaging, personalised, and conversational alternatives on social media and LLMs like Chat-GPT. Making them excited about the future, and showing the relevance of news to their daily lives was our challenge. After testing different options, and conducting user interviews, we arrived at our final model, which creates an experience that is fun and personalised, whilst still integrating high-quality content. Our format means that you are consuming information and learning, but without it feeling like a chore.

„Cosy Futures Creator creates a new way of engaging with journalism. Instead of you simply consuming an article or video, you can actually interact with the content, and tailor it for yourself."

How is the Cosy Futures Creator connected to journalism, and how did you tailor the tool for publishers and news organizations?

Nour: Cosy Futures Creator creates a new way of engaging with journalism. Instead of you simply consuming an article or video, you can actually interact with the content, and tailor it for yourself.

Beyond recommending articles, CFC creates a dialogue between journalists and their audience, through crowd journalism: Users can share their ideas and hopes for the future through the tool, which can be used to generate content or to better understand your target audience’s needs.

Different media houses have different needs and audiences, and our flexible framework allows customisation, for different languages, regions, and target groups.

Testing of the tool with the team of taz – die tageszeitung

During the development of your product, you collaborated with various media outlets, such as wochentaz. What feedback did you receive, and how did it influence the development of your tool?

Nour: A key feedback we received at the beginning of our project was that news users can easily click away if they are bored - you need to capture their attention. In response, our initial chatbot idea evolved to be more goal-oriented (“design your ideal normal day in the future”), with strong storytelling and interactive elements. This engages the user for longer, meaning that we can convey more information, and create a more memorable experience in a crowded digital landscape.

„With Cosy Futures Creator, you can re-engage youth, make finding personally relevant information a more fun user experience, and build a stronger relationship with your audience through the crowd interaction elements."

Why should publishers and news organizations implement the Cosy Futures Creator, and how can they benefit from it?

Nour: News organisations are struggling to capture Gen-Zers’ attention. We’ve had very positive feedback from testing with a youth audience. In order to engage this audience, you have to adapt to changing media consumption preferences. With CFC, you can re-engage youth, make finding personally relevant information a more fun user experience, and build a stronger relationship with your audience through the crowd interaction elements.

One of the aims of your project was to help users imagine how they can work towards making their “cosy futures” a reality. How do you bridge the gap between your interactive tool and real-world action?

Nour: After imagining your ideal normal day, the tool allows you to pick a theme you’d like to prioritise in real life, like ‘relationships’ or ‘climate change’, and provides general tips for action, and articles to learn more.

We are working on further steps to support users. In partnership with local media houses, schools, and city governments we want to integrate databases of initiatives, so you can directly participate in positive change happening around you. Also, we are developing a workshop toolkit for CFC-based future imagination events to collectively plan positive action. This will be tested with a Gen Z audience at Käthe-Kollwitz-Gymnasium in Berlin.

What are your next steps for the Cosy Futures Creator after the end of the MIZ funding?

Nour: Having built a prototype with MIZ, our next step is to start working with partners to bring CFC to media audiences across Germany. We are in initial discussions with various media houses, and we are seeing particular promise with regional media houses.

Additionally, we are in talks with different funding organisations to secure additional funding for our project to start working towards incorporating and generating long-term financial sustainability.

CFC will also be featured as the interactive exhibit of the Solarpunk exhibition at Dortmunder U between October 2025 and February 2026.

How did the MIZ innovation funding help you with your project?

Nour: MIZ’s support has been instrumental to our project. It was a real challenge to go from an initial idea to a functioning product that fit media houses’ and users’ needs. MIZ’s regular feedback and support and the coaching they facilitated helped us move through the different stages of our prototype development  (with major thanks to our mentor Jakob Vicari).

Additionally, MIZ’s networks helped us test our prototype and receive feedback from various stakeholders, from media houses to funding institutions. And of course, without the funding, the CFC simply would not exist.

Finally, we want to thank Luise Strothmann from taz and Aleksi Neuvonen from Demos Helsinki for their support and experienced advice that helped make our project a reality.

Further Links

>>> Project Page of Cosy Futures Creator on the MIZ Website
>>> Final Presentation by Cosy Futures Creator at MIZ Innovation Pitch #7 (starts at 23:38)