Automation and the introduction of Industry 4.0 interactive technologies have imposed novel challenges and burdens on academics and industrial practitioners. Developing systems for future workplaces need sufficient knowledge and understanding of the trends and technological developments and their viability from both industry and academic experts before introducing the general population. Utilizing co-design ideation workshops supported by various design tools can provide better ideation for designing future scenarios. We conducted a qualitative study to analyze academics’ and industrial practitioners’ points of view on persona as a design tool during a conference workshop. These participants empirically test the co-creation of personas and find conceptual differences between the groups in their tool use. We used pre and post-workshop surveys and workshop transcripts to code and clustered our findings. The conclusion is that the differences in academics’ and industrial practitioners’ perspectives and use of design tools for ideation are substantial but combined in a team can lead to designing positive experiences in future workplaces.