Everything is About to Change: Software as Material
Summary
It’s a wonderful time for UX people who work in enterprises. We’ve made huge strides—from greater acceptance to concrete impacts—and our opportunities seem endless. But don’t get too comfortable, as enterprises are on the cusp of a huge and disruptive change. A variety of trends are converging to make it increasingly cheap and easy to develop software. In effect, software is becoming a material, and what enterprises make from it is far more important than how we make it. UX people can sit by and watch as enterprises figure out what to make out of the new material of software. Or we can be smart and partner with developers to define the coming generation of products and services. Greg Petroff will help us understand thIs new materiality of software and the opportunities for UX people to increase their impact and relevance.
Key Insights
-
•
Software is becoming a material, blending architecture and UX principles to shape how we build digital experiences.
-
•
Machine learning advances exponentially, enabling systems to learn human-like patterns, drastically changing UX possibilities.
-
•
IoT growth enables systems to predict future behaviors through real-time data and analytics, creating new UX demands.
-
•
Compute costs are dropping, allowing powerful 'edge' devices that combine IoT and AI capabilities locally.
-
•
Blockchain will enable secure, trustworthy interactions across distributed systems, especially in IoT.
-
•
The new tech stack supports platform as a service with microservices, drastically increasing speed and modularity in software development.
-
•
Traditional PRDs are being replaced by small, iterative backlogs, emphasizing rapid cycles and continuous integration/deployment.
-
•
Context-first design, personalizing experiences based on user intent and environment, will dominate future enterprise UX.
-
•
Designers must become business-savvy and embrace abductive thinking to guide what to build and why in this uncertain landscape.
-
•
Designers have a critical role as teachers who train AI systems by embedding human cultural and behavioral insights into algorithms.
Notable Quotes
"Machine learning is moving so fast that systems can learn whole codgers of content and change how we think about experiences."
"Amazon Echo is the first technology my artist wife really loves because it's genuinely useful and gets smarter over time."
"The biggest security risk is human behavior, like plugging a USB stick into a copier, not nefarious hackers."
"The way we build software now is fundamentally different; it's just easier to write code using platforms and microservices."
"We’re entering a world where design is going to be core to strategy and where making will become thinking."
"No one knows how to cook with the new ingredients of technology yet, and that’s why we face ambiguity and uncertainty."
"In enterprise, we’re moving from systems of record, to systems of engagement, to systems of assets where context drives experience."
"Designers are great at juxtaposition—putting unrelated things together to create new possibilities that engineers may not see."
"If we don’t lead technology change, others will, and we want that change to be design-led and human-centered."
"Abductive thinking, or what if thinking, is a core capability designers bring to defining what to build and why."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"Design shares are more about presenting finished work and practice defending it, not about peer-to-peer feedback."
Joseph MeersmanSweating the Pixel: Scaling Quality through Critique
June 10, 2021
"The epidemic of isolation is tied to digital design that creates connectivity without connection."
Daniel GloydDesigning Warmth
February 26, 2025
"Research really is the most predictive practice an organization has — we are the only ones who can really predict the future."
Robin BeersResearch as a Catalyst for Organizational Transformation
March 12, 2021
"Be a diplomat. Help people do their jobs better and share what you learn generously."
Kristin SkinnerOpening Keynote: Org Design for Design Orgs
November 6, 2017
"Measuring the success of marketing tactics is starting to become a focus; right now it’s fly-by-the-seat-of-our-pants but we want to quantify and prove impact."
Molly FargotsteinMultipurpose Communication & UX Research Marketing
September 12, 2019
"iCare adapted to India by lowering cupboard heights and changing cafeteria menus to fit Indian tastes and lifestyle habits."
Chui Chui TanGlobal insights: Embracing international and intercultural research for innovation
March 12, 2025
"AI moderation, in short, is a large language model that runs a moderated interview session without a human researcher present."
Tara TresselInvestigating qualitative depth of AI-moderated interviews
March 10, 2026
"Building relationships is essential to being of service and having impact."
Johnny MichaelsenMeasure Behaviors, Not Results
April 23, 2026
"Our job as researchers is not making reports or interviewing users; it’s providing actionable, correct insights."
Laura KleinHuman vs. machine: Testing AI’s ability to synthesize and analyze research
March 11, 2026
