AI-enabled Design Practice
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Design Practice
How AI changes the way we design.
Discovery & problem framing
Where I am now
I use AI within parts of my design process, including insight synthesis, problem framing, opportunity identification, hypothesis development and discovery preparation. AI helps accelerate analysis and exploration, while I retain judgement and accountability for the decisions.
Where I want to get to
Develop and test a repeatable AI-enabled discovery workflow that can be used by other designers, with clear guidance on where AI adds value, where human judgement is essential, and whether it demonstrably improves speed or quality.
Next step
Take one real discovery project and document:
Current workflow → AI intervention → human judgement → outcome
Critique / QA
Where I am now
I have established human-led review and QA practices as part of design delivery.
Goal
Explore whether AI can provide a useful first-pass review against defined design criteria, without replacing designer judgement or peer review.
Next step
Test AI review on one existing design alongside your normal review process and compare what each identifies.
Design Operations & Leadership
How AI changes the way we run design
Planning & portfolio management
Where I am now
I lead quarterly planning, prioritisation, capacity and workload management across multiple squads, and already use AI to support planning and operational activities. [Mid Year R...- Self '26 | Word]
Goal
Develop an AI-enabled planning workflow that reduces manual synthesis and helps surface priorities, capacity issues, dependencies and delivery risks more efficiently.
Next step
Use your existing quarterly planning process as the first experiment. Identify one part you currently do manually and test whether Copilot can meaningfully improve it.
Leadership workflows
Where I am now
I already use AI across reviews and evidence gathering, PDPs, feedback synthesis, stakeholder communication, difficult-conversation preparation, presentations and reporting. [Mid Year R...- Self '26 | Word]
Goal
Turn the most effective uses into intentional, repeatable leadership workflows rather than ad-hoc AI assistance.
Next step
Pick one recurring activity and document:
Input → AI contribution → my judgement → output
This is actually quite mature already, so I'd concentrate more on capturing how you work and the benefit than inventing something new.
Scaling AI across teams
Where I am now
You've shared practical AI examples with colleagues and made improving design efficiency and decision quality through AI-assisted working an explicit objective for designers in the team. [Mid Year R...- Self '26 | Word], [Smeeth, Re...ca in chat | Teams]
Goal
Move from encouraging individual AI use to establishing a small number of proven, responsible AI-enabled workflows that designers can adopt consistently.
Next step
As you test the Discovery & Problem Framing and Critique & QA workflows on the other half of the page, turn anything that genuinely works into a repeatable team practice.
Impact
What changed as a result
Speed / effort
Quality
Adoption
Before → after workflows
My approach
What I've learned about leading design with AI