Jesse James Garrett

Every design leader, no matter what size your team, needs a point of view on AI. Now.

Maybe you haven’t yet felt the pressure from your executives (or your team) to articulate a perspective on where this new technology can be applied to create the most value. If so, you are part of what I expect to be a rapidly shrinking minority.

These topics became such a dominant theme in my work with UX design leaders last year that I’ve established a 🎉 new consulting practice 🎉 helping design leaders formulate AI transformation strategy for their teams.

But as I talk about with Peter Merholz on the latest episode of our design leadership podcast Finding Our Way, this work is about something much larger than responding to executive demands or the trend of the moment.

I see the introduction of AI into digital product design as a powerful leverage point to drive human-centered design work at deeper levels than ever before. It may require designers to radically rethink themselves, and design leaders to rethink the value propositions of their teams.

But this AI moment is just that: a moment. In a few years’ time, the best practices will be emerging, the state of the art will have advanced, and the leaders who have immersed themselves in these new ways of thinking the longest will be the ones demonstrating the most value.

The time to prepare for that future is right now. The domain is wide open for experimentation, and the leaders and teams who can effectively choose the right experiments and gather the shared insights will be best positioned to drive more meaningful impact.

If you are like many design leaders out there, you’re already caught in a tug-of-war with your cross-functional partners over product strategy and priorities. AI alone won’t change that equation, as we discuss on the podcast. You still need the relationships, trust, and power on your side to make things happen.

But being the leader in the room with the most sophisticated point of view on where the multiplier effect of AI technology can be found might be enough to tip the balance of that tug-of-war in a meaningful way.

Thanks as always to Peter for a great conversation! Check out the whole thing right now on our Finding Our Way website.