Rosenverse

Tools are moments. Capabilities compound.

Conference ticket
Tuesday, June 9, 2026 • Designing with AI 2026
Share the love for this talk
Tools are moments. Capabilities compound.
Speakers: Vanessa Varin
Link:

Summary

As design organizations race to adopt AI, many still measure readiness through tool fluency — who can use ChatGPT, Claude, or Figma Make the fastest. But tools, as we’ve learned, are ephemeral. The deeper challenge is defining the durable human capabilities that remain valuable as AI fundamentally reshapes design work. This talk explores a new approach to AI readiness for design organizations: moving beyond tool proficiency to identify the underlying skills, competencies, and capabilities that scale across changing technologies. We’ll examine the distinction between skills and capabilities, the process of building an AI capability framework for design, and how we’re mapping designers against those competencies to establish a baseline and path forward. This session offers a practical, human-centered model for building resilient, AI-augmented design organizations — grounded in durable capability, not temporary tooling trends.

Key Insights

  • Measuring AI fluency by tool usage is insufficient and often misleading; focusing on human judgment and observable behaviors offers deeper understanding.

  • Vanessa distinguishes between skills (tool-specific, ephemeral), competencies (applied judgment using multiple skills), and capabilities (umbrella outcomes across competencies).

  • A capability framework with six core areas and 21 competencies was built collaboratively with hundreds of Amazon design practitioners across roles.

  • Creative exploration, quality and responsibility, insight and synthesis, systems and architecture, learning and adaptability, and AI-human collaboration are the framework’s six key capabilities.

  • Gamified assessments with about 30 questions allow designers to baseline their fluency, receive diagnostics, and get an actionable growth map.

  • Frequency of AI tool use doesn’t equate to fluency; depth of skill integration and confidence in directing AI matter much more.

  • Patterns show common gaps in quality and responsibility and systems thinking, which are areas for targeted learning and development investments.

  • Role assumptions are challenged—design program managers aren’t always stronger in systems thinking, for example, revealing real-world variance and learning needs.

  • Providing a shared vocabulary around AI fluency helps practitioners articulate and connect their evolving AI skills beyond specific tools.

  • Baseline assessments need to be challenging enough to create a growth ceiling, balancing accuracy and aspirational goal setting without skewing results.

Notable Quotes

"I actually don’t need to feel ready to learn, and I can be uncomfortable or scared and still learn."

"It feels like we’ve forgotten to ask what the humans were actually building while chasing the tools."

"The difference is putting the human and their agency back into the mix with the question: What can you do with AI?"

"Fluency is how deeply you can work with AI—the judgment and direction you bring, not just how often you use it."

"The skills are tied to the tool and ephemeral; capabilities are what belong to us and travel with us as tools change."

"We wanted to create something that’s not just a survey but a robust, gamified experience to baseline current skills and provide a growth map."

"We’re focusing on observable behaviors and outcomes, not specific tools or time saved, to measure AI fluency."

"Everyone is learning and evolving right now; they just need language and frameworks to name what they’re growing."

"If the bar is too low, everyone looks very capable, and that doesn’t help growth or trust in the mapping."

"AI is the instrument. You all are the musicians. Build the capabilities that make quality music."

Ask the Rosenbot
Jon Fukuda
Storytelling for DesignOps
2023 • DesignOps Community
Rich Mironov
How Can Product Managers and UXers Help Each Other (and Why are Product Folks so Annoying Sometimes)?
2022 • Design in Product 2022
Gold
Ashley Cortez
Shifting Toward Community-Led Innovation in Local Government
2021 • Civic Design 2021
Gold
Ryan Matthew
DesignOps without Boundaries: Building More with What You Have
2025 • DesignOps Summit 2025
Gold
Saara Kamppari-Miller
DesignOps for Inclusive Design and Accessibility
2022 • DesignOps Community
Chloe Amos-Edkins
A Cultural Approach: Research in the Context of Glocalisation
2023 • Advancing Research 2023
Gold
Sean McKay
Whole Product Thinking: Expanding beyond problem and solution space thinking
2024 • Rosenfeld Community
Laura Weiss
Turn Down the Heat: 3 Ways to Handle Conflict in the Moment
2024 • Rosenfeld Community
Sabrina Mach
How to Design Your Design Operating Model
2021 • DesignOps Summit 2021
Gold
Tricia Wang
Spatial Collapse: Designing for Emergent Culture
2024 • Enterprise Experience 2020
Gold
Samuel Proulx
From Standards to Innovation: Why Inclusive Design Wins
2025 • Advancing Service Design 2025
Gold
Bria Alexander
Opening Remarks
2021 • DesignOps Summit 2021
Gold
Lona Moore
Scaling Design Beyond Designers
2021 • Design at Scale 2021
Gold
Dane DeSutter
Beyond the Console: The rise of the Gamer Experience and how gaming will impact UX Research across industries
2024 • QuantQual Interest Group
Iram Shah
Closing Keynote: The View from the Top
2019 • Enterprise Experience 2019
Gold
George Aye
Designing a New Social Contract
2026 • Rosenfeld Community

More Videos

Vicky Teinaki

"UX practitioners already have the mindset and mentality needed to drive a product discussion forward and a handy toolkit of approaches and methods."

Vicky Teinaki Michele Marut Tim Parmee

Short Take #3: UX/Product Lessons from Your Industry Peers

December 6, 2022

Phil Gilbert

"Design thinking is the scientific method for the 21st century."

Phil Gilbert

A Consistent Culture of Design

May 14, 2015

Darian Davis

"It takes at least one member of a team to choose to set healthy standards for collaboration."

Darian Davis

Lessons from a Toxic Work Relationship

January 8, 2024

Mike Oren

"Large discovery should focus on tier-3 unexplored markets, ones that require multiple years and large capital but may disrupt long-term."

Mike Oren

Why Pharmaceutical's Research Model Should Replace Design Thinking

March 28, 2023

Joi Freeman

"Fenty Beauty launched 40 shades at once, filling a gap no major cosmetic brand had addressed before."

Joi Freeman

A New Vantage Point: Building a Pipeline for Multifaceted Research(ers)

March 30, 2020

Alla Weinberg

"A relationship cycles through connection, disconnection, and repair, just like breathing has an inhale and an exhale."

Alla Weinberg

Cross-Functional Relationship Design

December 6, 2022

Bria Alexander

"Check out our digital swag bag for some awesome offers from our sponsors – it's like free t-shirts and sweaters but digital."

Bria Alexander

Opening Remarks

September 30, 2021

Elena Naids

"It’s about getting our stakeholders what they need, not just what they ask for."

Elena Naids Liza McRuer

The Power of Difficult Conversations: A Case Study on How We Introduced Design Ops in the Federal Government Space

October 2, 2023

"Strategy always before tactics. You cannot succeed without a clear strategic framework."

How to Identify and Increase your "Experience Quotient"

June 15, 2018