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How the most senior designers are using AI in their work right now
This video is featured in the UX playlist playlist.
Summary
Over the past few months, I spoke with other staff and principal designers at companies like Shopify, Stripe, and Justworks to see how they're actually using AI in their work. The answers are more nuanced and honest than much of what we're seeing on LinkedIn. This session pulls back the curtain and asks: when AI can handle busywork and even design execution, what do you choose to do?
Key Insights
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AI excels at converging ideas and synthesizing information but often produces middling outputs when generating complex, divergent ideas.
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Senior designers need to remain the ‘driver’ when working with AI, maintaining control over vision, intention, and critical decisions.
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Using AI to quickly locate and synthesize supporting data or research accelerates problem definition and validation phases.
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AI can streamline executive communication by helping tailor presentations to leadership’s perspective and typical questions.
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AI aids in prototyping and animating UI interactions but requires precise, human-led direction for quality results.
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AI is useful for automating repetitive, detail-oriented UI tasks like designing edge and error states, helping senior designers focus on strategy.
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Some senior designers use AI to draft production code or fixes, enabling quicker iteration but still depend on engineering review to maintain quality.
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Overreliance on AI risks diminishing human creativity, problem-solving skills, and intuition necessary for effective design leadership.
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Burnout and workflow complexity increase as AI tools multiply without clear simplification strategies in organizations.
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Convincing executives about AI’s limitations is more effective through demonstrating AI’s failures and tying work to real business and user outcomes.
Notable Quotes
"AI is a force multiplier we can use for good or it can create a lot of slop."
"If you are inputting really awesome human-created content, AI can synthesize something of quality, but it doesn’t create quality itself."
"We always want to be in the driver’s seat when using AI, not the passenger."
"AI can help find proof that the problem you want to solve exists and is worth investing in."
"AI may average ideas and create things that look samey, even more than human-designed ones already were."
"When you’re stuck, talking to a person can often get you unstuck better than asking AI."
"AI can help tailor upward communications, but you still need to consider the idiosyncrasies of your audience."
"People are 10X-ing product development speed, but we have to ask if we’re really solving the right user problems."
"We need to keep focused on impact and vision so that rapid iteration doesn’t become chaos or tech debt."
"Executives want good vibes; showing them through practice that AI doesn’t do the work perfectly helps slow down unrealistic expectations."
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