Cite & license

The Agentic AI Design Canvas and the Agent Operating Model are free to use, teach, adapt, and build on. All we ask is attribution, and that adaptations stay as open as the original.

How to cite

If the canvas or the Agent Operating Model informs your work, a talk, a course, or a publication, please cite it:

Reference

Freeman, M. (2026). The Agentic AI Design Canvas. INSEAD. https://designtheagent.com

In text

the Agentic AI Design Canvas (Freeman, 2026)

For the underlying framework, cite the Agent Operating Model (Freeman, 2026) in the same form.

BibTeX

@misc{freeman2026canvas,
  author       = {Freeman, Michael},
  title        = {The Agentic AI Design Canvas},
  year         = {2026},
  institution  = {INSEAD},
  howpublished = {\url{https://designtheagent.com}},
  note         = {Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0}
}

License

Two kinds of thing live in this project, and they carry different licences by design. The canvas and the framework are open, free to adopt, teach, and build on, so they can spread and become a shared standard. The software that powers this site stays proprietary.

Open · CC BY-SA 4.0

The canvas & framework

The canvas, its nine cells and prompts, the North Star, the Agent Operating Model and its description, and the canvas artwork. Free to use, share, adapt and build on, for any purpose including commercial, with attribution, and with adaptations shared under the same licence.

The coach & code

The application, server, frontend, libraries, and the critic's prompts and harness are not open. Please do not copy or redeploy the software. The canvas above does not depend on it.

Read the full open licence at creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0.

Attribution

When you reproduce or adapt the canvas, keep a visible credit. The short form is enough:

“Agentic AI Design Canvas by Michael Freeman (INSEAD), CC BY-SA 4.0, designtheagent.com”

Downloads

The blank canvas — print-ready A1 PDF (scales cleanly to A2).
The canvas coach — a free, Claude-backed reviewer that coaches the gaps before you build.

Questions or permissions

For workshops, teaching use, or anything the licence does not obviously cover, write to hello@designtheagent.com.