Anshu, a Yahoo principal product designer, discusses her work leading GenAI initiatives. Her focus is on designing AI as a collaborative tool, not a replacement for human interaction, emphasizing user trust and ethical considerations. She highlights challenges like AI's unpredictability and the need for strong cross-functional alignment. Anshu offers advice for designers entering the field: embrace ambiguity, prototype early, understand AI capabilities, and advocate for the user. She predicts AI will become a powerful design tool, enhancing human capabilities rather than replacing them. AI is fundamentally shifting interaction design from individual interaction to collaborative design, with AI acting as a co-pilot. User-centered design remains crucial in AI product development; aligning user needs with business goals is essential. Designing for AI requires embracing unpredictability and iterating through rapid experimentation, prototyping, and testing. Traditional design's emphasis on control is less applicable. Cross-functional alignment between design, engineering, product, and ethics teams is vital for successful AI product development. Open communication and shared understanding are key. Transparency and user control are critical for building trust in AI-powered products. Addressing ethical considerations and user privacy is paramount. Designers need to understand AI capabilities and limitations (e.g., model biases, confidence scores) to effectively collaborate with engineering teams. Basic knowledge of machine learning is beneficial. Designers should advocate for users, ensuring AI enhances user experience rather than creating additional complexities. Asking critical questions and iterating based on user feedback is essential. Designers should leverage AI tools to improve workflows, such as generating assets or content, but focus on solving user problems rather than simply using the tools for their own sake. To stay relevant in the age of AI, designers must learn to leverage AI's capabilities to solve problems more efficiently and effectively, while retaining their core skills in problem-solving, empathy, and user understanding. Anu's provided context doesn't offer specific predictions about AI's future in design over the next 5-10 years. , , However, based on general AI trends, it's likely that AI will become even more integrated into the design process. We can expect to see advancements in AI-powered tools that automate repetitive tasks, generate design options, and personalize user experiences. AI's role in design will likely shift from a supplementary tool to a more collaborative partner, assisting designers in exploring creative possibilities and improving efficiency. The focus will likely remain on using AI to enhance human capabilities rather than replace designers entirely. Anu emphasizes the importance of "Show and Tell" when communicating AI concepts to cross-functional partners. Instead of relying solely on verbal explanations, she suggests creating visual representations and demonstrations to effectively convey ideas. This approach helps bridge the communication gap between designers and other team members who may have different levels of AI expertise. While specific AI concepts aren't explicitly listed, understanding the capabilities and limitations of AI models is crucial for effective collaboration. Designers should also focus on creating AI-powered experiences that feel natural and enhance existing workflows rather than adding complexity. Ultimately, designers should advocate for the user, ensuring that AI integrations improve user experience and build trust. Uh, Um, andu, how do you, how do you really keep up with the trends in AI? Um, to be honest, it's, it's pretty challenging the the amount of things that are coming out, things are moving so fast that keeping up with it is really challenging couple of ways I do that is I try to go to as many, uh, conferences and like the meetups that happens in the Baray area. So having being in San Francisco helps a lot. Uh, along with that, I have this, um, I have this plug-in called MLE. uh, on my Chrome extension. I think that helps a lot in terms of everything new that is happening in AI. It shows me every single day. and then on top of it, I spend 15 to 20 minutes every day to like, see what is going on, what am I missing. And also, I, I really enjoy all the drama that happens around tech like the deep se seek that happened and then things that that comes with it. I think that is also very interesting. So I think, I think investing like 15 to 20 minutes a day, like, see, and read, uh, finding inspiration around it. Um, and then talking to friends and then attending meetups like this. I think it helps a lot to see things in a different perspective than you already do. love it. And I see Alex has dropped the link in the chat. driven products? Um, that's a, that's a, that's a very interesting question. I think, um, I think it is, I think, what I have experienced and I have learned is that it is more about show and tell. I think whenever I have shared something verbally, it is very difficult for other people to understand and experience what I'm saying. So I think one of the key ways I have learned how to share what I'm thinking about is like create things and then share it on on the screen. Like this is what I'm thinking about. This is how it flows. So I think it, it's it just, you win half of the battle battle the moment you share the screen and then show how the flow is happening. So, I think show and tell is one of the key ways for like me to, uh, share AI concepts to the people. So I think, yeah, I would say that I think it's also a good, just a good call out for us as designers. You know, we are great in terms of acting. Um, I also keep advising my teams about the importance of storytelling or like being okay with presenting your work. So it's a, it's a good call out, I feel, regardless of whether you are an AI, but more so, if you are an AI, right, thank you for that question. Um, I'm seeing a lot more trickle and so we're going to like cycle through these. What program did you take at MIT? Yeah. um, I, I studied, um, uh, design for AI products and services. It was a six weeks long course. Um, the first first two weeks are design heavy Um, uh, I see a question from Sidhar, what are some parts of the design process where you're leveraging AI to improve your workflows? Yeah, there are, um, there are multiple ones actually. Um, I think there a lot of lot of new AI features that has come in Figma So of course I'm trying to leverage those, um, along with that. um, because I work in a larger organization so I'm not able to like leverage creating like a AI created illustrations or icons or like assets that comes with it because everything is very intact. But then, if I was in a startup or in in that kind of environment where I didn't have the, um, wherein, when I didn't have the luxury to work with the already created design system, the way I would have leveraged it is uh, creating the, the design system from the scratch, asking the AI itself or figuring out like different visual treatments with one click of the button, having different illustration styles, icons and then content. like, I think content is such a key thing there is, and I think I very bad at writing content, but then now that AI is there, I can just tell AI like write, might make this sound like this. I think having content in the design, also taking leveraging that as well. So I think there's so many possibilities if you don't have a designment system using AI, you can like create a product in like couple of days rather than taking a month. Wow. And that's so true. Like people are bringing a lot of products to market under quick rapid cycles.