Day 1 Using AI in UX with Impact
This video is featured in the Designing with AI 2025 playlist.
Summary
With the constant influx of new AI models and tools, it can be hard to distinguish hype from true value. Learn from experienced design practitioners where AI has delivered on its promises, where it hasn’t, and the processes they’re using to leverage AI to its full potential.
Key Insights
-
•
Designers have faced ongoing layoffs through 2025 even as AI tools proliferate.
-
•
The past year saw a shift from experimental AI use to validating dozens of AI design tools across the process.
-
•
AI can increase efficiency and unlock new capabilities but may devalue or dehumanize design work.
-
•
Human-centered design is questioned when AI can generate designs without human insight.
-
•
Many AI UX 'authorities' promoted tools and courses without direct practical involvement.
-
•
Real-world company practitioners, not marketers or consultants, provide the most valuable AI-UX case studies.
-
•
Speakers like Erica Flowers focus on organizational-wide AI adoption and opportunity identification.
-
•
Patrick Boer explores user and community research requirements when integrating AI.
-
•
RS Kin investigates how AI changes the nature of design materials and adaptive responses.
-
•
Oveta Sampson emphasizes adapting design processes to remain human-centered despite AI acceleration.
Notable Quotes
"It’s been a really challenging year for the design profession with layoffs continuing in 2025."
"At last year’s conference, we were still scrambling to figure out where AI might be useful in our work."
"Now a year later, the landscape is completely different with dozens of new AI design tools for all stages."
"It’s a love-hate relationship with AI because it can make us more efficient but also devalue our work."
"If you don’t need a designer to create designs, what happens to designers?"
"Are you really practicing human-centered design if you stop designing around insights from real humans?"
"It can seem like all the AI UX authorities are trying to sell you something without real skin in the game."
"Today’s speakers come from real world companies facing real consequences for their choices about AI."
"Where in your design process is your biggest opportunity for AI adoption?"
"Let’s all advocate for AI products and processes that keep the human at the center."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"By the time the report comes out, your immediate team should have already moved on with implementing feedback."
Anna Avrekh Dr. John Pagonis Klara Pelcl Sina SchreiberExpert Panel: Leading in and with Research
March 10, 2022
"Recruiters have become conditioned to treat demographic criteria as flexible or optional, and I want to say they shouldn't be."
Megan CamposWhat Did I Miss? The Hidden Costs of Deprioritizing Diversity in User Research
March 12, 2021
"Employees that have a work best friend have a 50% drop in turnover risk and are 300% more likely to say they love their companies."
Kat VellosOpener: The Other L Word
January 8, 2024
"Believe people’s lived experiences. Actually listen to what people tell us and believe them."
Adrian HowardSturgeon’s Biases
September 25, 2024
"Potential refers to not yet actualized possibilities that may or may not come to fruition."
Nicole AleongFuture Orientations to Everyday Life: Futures Anthropology as a Methodology
March 26, 2024
"It’s probably a good idea to remove the piercings my interpreter confirmed."
Tamara HaleWar Stories LIVE! Tamara Hale
March 30, 2020
"Discomfort should not be dismissed; it’s a signpost for necessary change."
Rachael Dietkus, LCSWThe power to heal and harm
March 13, 2025
"The in-house researcher has some elements of the client and stakeholder roles."
Steve PortigalLooking Back…to Look Ahead
March 26, 2024
"We created personas that address who the veteran is, what their goals are, their pain points, and their experiences with the VA."
Megan Nipe Lyndsay BoothHuman-Centered Design for Engagement: Maturing from Newsletterville to Personalized, One-to-One Messaging
December 8, 2021
