Shifting Design

As AI becomes embedded in everyday product work, the most profound changes are no longer happening at the level of tools, but at the level of practice, collaboration, and professional identity.

This session offers a grounded perspective from inside one of today’s most intensive AI transformation environments: Microsoft. It brings together synthesized insights from designers and cross-disciplinary teams who are not observing the shift from a distance, but living it daily.

Rather than presenting a single point of view, the session reflects a collective reading of what is changing so far: how roles stretch and overlap, how judgment is redistributed between humans and systems, how collaboration patterns evolve, and where traditional design assumptions begin to strain.

The intent is not to showcase scale, but to surface patterns. While these insights emerge from a large organization,  they point to fundamental questions every design team now faces: How do we design when the tools start making decisions?

What the session focuses on

• Process: How AI is reshaping product-making itself, not just accelerating execution
  
• Friction: Where design practice is expanding, compressing, or fragmenting under AI pressure
  
• Identity: How designers’ roles, responsibilities, and influence are being redefined in real work
  
• Future Skills: What this shift implies for skills, collaboration, and decision-making in the near future
  
  

This is not a future forecast. It is a snapshot of lived transition, as observed in early 2026.

What participants will gain

Participants will leave with:

• Understand how design judgement is shifting as AI enters everyday practice.
  By clarifying which decisions move to systems, which remain human, and which now require shared judgment.
• Understand how the designer’s role is evolving in AI-shaped environments
  Including the move from execution toward orchestration, judgment, and cross-disciplinary alignment.
• Learn how to recognize where design practice is stretching, compressing, or fragmenting.
  And what these pressures signal about process, collaboration, and decision-making.
• Understand how these shifts translate to small and mid-sized organizations.
  Without copying big-tech models, but adapting intentionally to local context, scale, and culture.

The underlying thesis is simple: scale is contextual, but change is personal. Every designer must renegotiate their identity as a product maker, regardless of organization size.

‍