This Week’s Updates: Seeing what agents actually did, AI transformation, discovery that keeps learning, human judgement in design and research that gets used.
The Interface Has Changed, Again...
The shift from physical stores to online was hard for many companies. And the desktop-to-mobile transition was almost as tough. Now we have a new shift.
OpenAI just released Intelligent UI. It will build a custom UI for you, specific to the problem you are solving. It will dynamically pull in all of the data, and tools it needs to complete a full job that a customer needs doing and design the perfect UI just for that task. And this is going to be huge.
What does it mean for product teams?
We invest enormous amounts of time making the UI easier to navigate, search, filter and complete tasks in. Just like people make their physical stores the easiest to navigate. But over the next few years your share of human versus bot traffic is going to change dramatically, and the API and MCP will become the new UX. Websites aren't going to disappear completely, but there will be new MCP-only competitors entering industries like there are mobile-only competitors today.
While this might be worrying, it is also freeing. What new things can you offer customers that were just too complex to get right in the UI? How can you expand beyond your current step to take on more of the wider job that the customer is trying to achieve? It is a huge mindset shift but also a huge opportunity. And the earlier you start investing, the better the outcome.
This Week’s Updates
Enabling the Team
AI, tools and transformation by Benedict Evans
AI adoption becomes transformation when teams redesign institutional workflows, rather than adding personal tools to unchanged ways of working.
Hiring Breakpoints by Stay SaaSy
Hiring changes the coordination a team needs. Match new roles, management capacity and specialist support to the problems growth creates.
Product Direction
The fake double diamond is dead. The real double diamond is immortal. by Pavel Samsonov
AI does not remove the need to define problems, test hypotheses and revisit results. Real discovery connects learning before and after delivery.
How to write an outcome-based OKR when your user is an AI agent by Jeff Gothelf
When agents use your product, measure whether people accept the results and need less repair, rather than treating API activity as customer value.
Continuous Research
ChatGPT vs Humans for Coding Open-Ended Responses, Three Years Later by Will Schiavone, Eva Sundberg and Jeff Sauro
A repeated coding study tests AI agreement and consistency, showing why research teams should validate their own datasets before automating analysis.
No Practice. No Mandate. I Built One Anyway by Joe Pendlebury
A fintech researcher built an evidence hub, linked findings to decisions and changed delivery formats to help busy stakeholders use the research.
Continuous Design
What Does AI-Readiness Mean in Design Systems? by Cris Morales
Repeated interface-generation tests expose the difference between documenting a design system and giving AI enough context to use it correctly.
Should the job of a UX designer be reserved for humans? by Slava Polonski, PhD
As AI takes on more design work, consider where human relationships, accountability and expertise are part of the value customers receive.
Continuous Development
Building an AI Hive Mind to Understand Systems as a Manager by Candost Dağdeviren
A manager makes system knowledge accessible through scoped agents, documented ownership and weekly context updates that humans review.
Many Agents, Many Views by Luke Wroblewski
Diagrams, change comparisons and focused views help people inspect what agents have done, understand their plans and steer the next step.
Seen an interesting article online? Share it with us, and we might feature it in our next issue! Click here to share an article
What Does Your Team Need To Figure Out Before 2027?
AI is changing how product teams work, but not every team is trying to solve the same problem. Some are rethinking roles. Some are trying to turn pilots into measurable impact. Others are focused on trust, control and quality as AI starts to act on behalf of users and teams.
- If your team is trying to define new AI roles
Sessions from CNN, Figma, Atlassian and NTT DATA look at what happens when product, design and engineering responsibilities start to overlap. - If your team is trying to move from AI pilots to impact
ŌURA and Uber will share how teams are moving beyond experimentation and into real workflows, systems and business value. - If your team is worried about trust, control and quality
Sessions from Snap, Sephora and the agentic AI panel explore what it takes to build AI products that customers and organisations can rely on.
UXDX San Francisco takes place on 5 and 6 November. Explore the agenda, choose the conversations your team needs to be part of, and don't forget to use NEWSLETTERSF26 for 10% off tickets.
Community Events
Last week was a hit! Hundreds of people showed up around the globe for our Global Product Week. In all the excitement, some new events have already been scheduled.
UPCOMING IN-PERSON EVENTS
17 October: Washington, DC
28 October: Glasgow
UPCOMING ONLINE EVENTS
11 November: Agenda Setting in Enterprise UX
Want a UXDX Community event in your city? Apply to become an ambassador
Video Of The Week
Zero-Blocker Delivery:
Closing the Design-Engineering Gap (for Real)
A polished design file can still leave an engineer with a long list of unanswered questions. At N26, Marcus Knight used those questions to make the team's definition of ready more explicit.
Marcus explains how he turned repeated engineering feedback into an AI-assisted check for missing states, broken flows and unclear documentation. The aim was to surface problems earlier, while designers could still resolve them, and make the handoff conversation more useful.
Watch the full session for a practical look at sharing intent and catching gaps before they become delivery blockers.
Zero-Blocker Delivery: Closing the Design-Engineering Gap (for Real)
Want to go into how careers and leadership are shifting as AI compresses the ladder? My ebook Managing Your Career In The Age Of AI explores how to build judgement, relationships and influence in a world that keeps trying to automate the surface of the work.