Stickies #4: Designing in the Age of AI
3 bits of wisdom worth sharing this week
I’ve been wrapping my head around AI for a while now. Even the letters ‘A’ and ‘I’ in any word always stand out to me.
Speaking of design and AI, it’s a vast topic. Designing for AI. Designing with AI. There are so many interesting angles to explore. I guess that just shows how powerful it is, disrupting every aspect.
Although AI has been compared to the internet 30 years ago, I can’t totally relate. Back then, I was just a kid playing Mario Kart on my SNES.
But for me, experiencing a transformative technology happened in 2008 when my friend brought an iPhone 3G loaded with cool apps. I remember being amazed by this game where I had to tilt the phone to move a ball through a maze1. The iPhone at that time blew my mind. Unfortunately, I was a broke student and couldn’t afford an iPhone until the iPhone 5, four years later. That was the beginning of smartphones going mainstream. Fast forward to today, smartphones and mobile apps are just part of daily life, transforming every aspect of how we live.
Exploring generative AI gives me that same feeling I had when I first held an iPhone.
People say AI has gone through cycles—winters and summers2. I guess this is a pretty cool summer to enjoy. For the record, I’m not an AI expert or anything, I’m just a deeply curious designer exploring the space, ready to be corrected or proven wrong.
Anyway, this week’s stickies, I’m dedicating them to what I’ve discovered so far about what’s next in emerging tech—drum roll… AI.
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The Era of Intent-Driven User Experience
Before reading ’s article, I saw that OpenAI had just released Operator3, It’s basically like interacting with ChatGPT to book trips, order groceries, and find deals straight from a prompt, or as people call it, an AI agent.
The agentic era (AI-driven systems) is here, and the way we interact with digital products in the coming years may never be the same again. Imagine booking a ticket, normally, you'd go through multiple screens and clicks. With an agent, you just say what you need, and it gets done in one go.
Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s CEO, even said, "SaaS is dead."4 Not literally, but he means the way we think about software is shifting. Instead of SaaS being confined to standalone apps, intent-driven agents can tap into multiple APIs, pulling data and executing tasks seamlessly, again, in one go.
Vamsi’s post walks through the evolution of search, showing how search experiences have developed and are now on the verge of intent-driven experiences. What does this mean for designers? It introduces new design patterns, reshaping how interfaces interact with users, along with fresh challenges and lessons on designing user experiences for this new intent-driven paradigm.
The Next Era of Design: Emerging AI Interface Patterns
Following Vamsi’s post, I stumbled upon this piece by , sharing about emerging interface patterns in this evolving AI landscape. I couldn’t agree more with his take: “interface designers are navigating uncharted territory. No playbook, no established patterns.”
Well then, off we go! (Fingers crossed.)
Thanks, Pat, for kicking off this conversation, this will serve as an initial compass for us designers as we navigate these uncharted territories. We’re going to see many more discussions around this, and soon, finding our footing.
My gut: AI goes beyond a prompt box or a chat interface. We’re going to see even more creative, intuitive ways to make these systems even friendlier and easier to use, or maybe they already are as easy to use as talking to a person?
The Age of Average
Last, although it’s not about AI, this piece: The Age of Average makes me wonder, what happens when generative AI design becomes mainstream?
Even without AI, every product looks the same. We've long said it: “design isn’t art”. At the end of the day, design is engineered for efficiency, predictability, and business outcomes. Designers follow the same playbook, same programs, tools, and inspirations—blurring everything into uniformity.5
My feeling, when AI-generated design saturates the market by non-designers, we’ll see even more of the same. But then what? The truly skilled designers will rise and make breakthroughs, creating new value, not by rejecting AI, but by knowing how to wield it differently.
Bonus: Check this out! Designers reminiscing about the era before AI. Thanks, Dann for the nostalgia trip.6
Until next time.
Cheers,
Thomas
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I like the mention of the emerging AI interface patterns.
I recently posted an article reflecting on the loaded question of "Will AI replace designers?" The emergence of AI is definitely the beginning of boundless opportunities for new interfaces.
https://evaxdesign.substack.com/p/will-ai-replace-designers?r=4uune8