What is the role of design in a product-led world

Over the past three months, I’ve gone deep into AI—not as a theorist, but as a design leader trying to make sense of how this technology is reshaping our practice in real time.

In this talk, I share that journey.

From setting direction within my own team to speaking with peers across the industry, I’ve taken a deliberate discovery-led approach: asking questions, running experiments, and creating space for exploration while still delivering real work.

Inside my team, this meant defining three clear focus areas—and then stepping back to give designers autonomy in how they engage with AI. Outside the team, it meant actively seeking out others—designers, product thinkers, technologists—to understand how they are navigating the same shift.

What’s emerging (currently) is not a neat answer, but a set of tensions:

-Between speed and depth
-Between augmentation and erosion of craft
-Between possibility and unintended consequence
-Between transformation and established craft

This talk brings those threads together—offering a grounded view of how AI is actually showing up in our design practice today, what we’re learning so far, and what we need to be intentional about as we move forward.

What I will leave you with…
-A case study as to how we are using AI at the ABC in the Design practice
-Some insights as to where we are exploring the use cases of AI in other areas of our practice
-Hopefully a sense of optimism