Who are we designing for now?

"AI is disrupting more than the software industry, and is doing so at a breakneck speed. Not long ago, designers were deep in Figma variables and pixel-perfect mockups. Now, tools like v0, Lovable, and Cursor are enabling instant, vibe-based prototyping that makes old methods feel almost quaint. What's coming into sharper focus isn't fidelity, it's foresight. Part of the work of Product Design today is conceptual: sensing trends, building future-proof systems, and thinking years ahead."

"As AI agents become embedded collaborators in our systems, designers face a powerful and pressing question: Who are we designing for now? Suddenly, we find ourselves in the middle of a new Experience dilemma: designing for both people and programs. That means exploring new personas and reconciling different approaches: emotional intuition, logical execution, and the coherence of both. Let's have a look at the pitfalls of this dilemma and explore what we have to consider while designing for both humans and machines."

"But agents don't feel. They parse. They tokenize. They operate on pattern recognition, context, probability, and strict interpretation. Designing for agents means building interfaces that are accessible and intuitive but speak clearly to non-human readers. Think structured data, semantic HTML, accessible roles, predictable metadata, and context. If your interface looks like poetry to a human but gibberish to an LLM, you're probably in trouble for future intertwined human-agent interactions."

AI is rapidly changing design practices beyond software, shifting emphasis from pixel-level fidelity toward foresight and system thinking. Designers must balance conceptual, future-oriented work—sensing trends, building future-proof systems, and planning years ahead—with solving present, high-value problems. AI agents are emerging collaborators that parse, tokenize, and execute rather than feel, requiring new UX abstractions and machine-readable interfaces. Interfaces should use structured data, semantic markup, accessible roles, predictable metadata, and clear context so both humans and agents can interact. New personas and reconciled approaches are necessary to integrate emotional intuition with logical execution in hybrid human-agent experiences.

Read at Medium