Holding Space in Moments of Transformation
We have been asked recently to explore how AI might drive productivity across UX. On its own, that is a reasonable question. Productivity is how organizations talk about progress.
What gives me pause is how quickly that framing narrows the conversation. When design is discussed primarily in terms of productivity, the focus tends to shift toward speed, output, and throughput. That framing pushes attention toward execution, which is the part of the work AI is best suited to automate.
That is where the tension starts.
The question is not whether AI will replace designers.
The more important question is whether we are defining design in a way that makes replacement seem logical.
When speed becomes the definition of value
When we talk about using AI in design strictly to move faster or produce more, we send a clear message about where we believe design’s value lives. We imply that design is mostly about making things, not deciding what should be made.
Execution is visible and measurable. Judgment is not. And judgment is the harder, more valuable part of the work.
Design’s real contribution happens before execution begins. It lives in understanding context, making sense of ambiguity, weighing tradeoffs, and deciding what is worth in the first place. It lives in taste, intuition, ethical reasoning, and the ability to hear what is not being said. It lives in knowing when something is technically correct but still wrong.
These are slow, human skills. They do not scale cleanly, and they cannot be automated in any meaningful way.
If we define design productivity as throughput, we train the business to see design as execution. If we define it as better decisions and faster learning, we strengthen the parts of the discipline that cannot be reduced.
That distinction shapes everything that follows.
“Why don’t we just let AI make it?”
This became very real for me during a recent conversation with a product leadership partner. They asked if I had tried some of the AI UI generation tools and then said, “Why don’t we just prompt it and have AI spit out the UI? We can move faster. We don’t need to go through this whole design process.”
I remember walking away from that conversation feeling unsettled. Not because the question was hostile, but because it felt reasonable to them.
The outputs from those tools often look fine at first glance. Clean layouts. Familiar patterns. Something that appears complete. But they are also shallow. They do not understand the messy context behind the problems we are trying to solve. They reuse historical patterns without questioning whether those patterns still make sense. They do not reflect the values of the people we serve or the organization we work within.
They look plausible without being meaningful.
What stayed with me was the realization that the people we collaborate with every day are beginning to ask, openly, why human design judgment is necessary at all.
Leading inside the uncertainty
This is no longer an abstract industry debate. It is showing up inside teams, meetings, and planning conversations.
Every week seems to bring another shift. Another reorganization. Another expectation to adapt immediately. AI is changing how work gets done faster than most of us, leaders included, are prepared for. Roles are blurring. Assumptions are eroding.
I feel this when I look at my team and try to provide direction while we are all still finding our footing. I feel it when the question becomes “How can design move faster with AI?” before we have aligned on what good actually looks like. I feel it when I think about what my own role might look like a year from now.
Underneath all of this is a quiet anxiety. What if the way we have worked, and the skills we have spent years developing, are no longer enough?
The leadership work beneath the design work
The hardest part of this moment is not learning new tools.
It is leading through uncertainty while expectations around the discipline continue to shift.
My team still looks to me for clarity, even when clarity is difficult to offer. There are days when it would be easier to give simple answers and move on. But I have learned that rushing to certainty often leads to shallow decisions and fragile alignment.
Instead, I am trying to name what we do not yet know.
To be honest about what we are still evaluating.
To make room for questions that do not have immediate answers.
This kind of leadership does not show up cleanly in metrics. It is quieter work. But it supports better decision-making and helps teams stay grounded when everything around them feels unstable.
Where AI actually fits
AI can generate outputs and accelerate execution. That is real, and it is useful.
But it cannot decide what should exist, why it should exist, or whether it should exist at all.
Those decisions require judgment, context, values, and accountability. They require people.
Designers have an opportunity here to help organizations understand where AI fits and where it does not. To delegate the mechanical parts of the work while protecting the parts that must remain human. To shift from being primarily artifact producers to being people who help shape direction, meaning, and outcomes.
This is not about resisting change.
It is about being precise about what we are changing and why.
A defining moment without the hype
This moment in tech feels heavy because it is real. The ground is moving.
Design has always evolved alongside technology. Each shift has forced the discipline to clarify what actually matters. The designers who come through those moments well are not the ones who cling to tools or outputs. They are the ones who lean into judgment, adaptability, and care for the people on the other side of the work.
That is the work now.
Not to pretend this transition is easy or neutral. But to stay present with it long enough to shape what comes next with intention.
I do not know exactly what the future version of this role looks like yet.
But I am certain that the human parts of the work are not disappearing.
They are the reason the work has ever mattered.