The silver lining of AI for design and research

... and other notes from NYC's Pilot Design Leaders event

I recently hosted a group of design leaders at The Dutch in New York City to talk about where our craft is headed — and what it means to lead in an industry that’s changing faster than ever.

Here are some of the takeaways:

AI is a threat to some, and an opportunity to others

Those that will thrive and be excited by the change are product-minded builders, multi-faceted thinkers, and those who can embrace humility and a learner's mindset while tackling new and imperfect tools. AI will in the near term replace low-level production work and execution, and the work will often be derivative (after all, it's trained on all of our Figma files and launches from the past decade or so).

AI removes a bottleneck to user and business insights

We talked about the perennial tension between creative vision and measurable impact. The best designers embrace both — crafting inspiring, human-centered solutions while keeping business goals front and center. AI lowers the bar for many historically "product" tasks like writing PRDs, data analysis, SQL queries. With MCP, you can simply ask "how many users drop off in this step of the journey?" or “What’s different about how my customers are behaving in the US vs India?“ Product and data science are no longer the bottleneck to insight. Business-savvy designers who embrace tools to get closer to quantitative data analysis will be unstoppable.

Between AI and screen fatigue, the next generation will expect more

Gen Z is growing weary of dark patterns and infinite scrolls. They crave authenticity, physicality, and real human connection. The next big wave of innovation will blend technology with real-life joy — products that remind us that there is life out there beyond our screens and devices. Users in the new generation have seen some of the less flattering sides of Big Tech, and companies that are not just turning your online attention into advertising dollars but making your real world experience better will come out ahead.

How research is distributed has already been evolving

It was sobering to hear how research is being misused — more as a tool to validate hypotheses than to uncover uncomfortable truths that can unlock step-changes. Designers must champion research as a way to hear, learn, and evolve — not to rubber-stamp assumptions. When I started my career, many designers like myself were also researchers. That shift may be happening again for those that have a knack for objective insights and ethnography, and formally trained researchers may have another career internally guiding designers on how to scale research practices. This was an established practice at Google that we called “Poker Face” and I personally leveled up my research skills without taking away research jobs. Tools like Ballpark for online research at scale, and LLMs ability to synthesize and make meaning out of mass data sets, will make research ops and execution more streamlined and enable teams to do research more frequently and objectively.

Designers as Builders & Storytellers

Designers have incredible tools to visualize a narrative around user problems and solutions. AI only supercharges those skills — visual and written storytelling will take less time, have a higher level of polish, and be able to inspire on a more visceral level. In an AI-driven world, execution becomes more efficient — but defining what humans truly want, and will want in an ambiguous future, remains a deeply human challenge.

Design isn’t dead. Research isn’t dead. Circumstances are asking us to work differently, and with the right blend of optimism and drive to master new technologies, we’ll come out strong. As design leaders, we need to shape our processes to take advantage of them but keep an honest eye towards the human mind’s role in this new world and how we collaborate with the machine.

#DesignLeadership #AI #ProductDesign #UX #FutureOfWork