AI is changing how I work. Not by replacing design thinking. By making it more thorough.
I use AI to go deeper on problems, stress-test assumptions, and move from insight to concept faster than I could alone. It's not a shortcut. It's more like having a thinking partner available at any hour who never gets tired of the question.
Early discovery is where I lean on AI the most.
When I'm defining a problem space, I use AI to pressure-test my framing before I commit to it. I'll throw a research question at it and ask for five alternative ways to look at the same problem. I'll ask it to argue the other side. I'll ask it what I'm probably missing.
Using tools like Miro's AI features, I can quickly expand a single question into multiple investigative paths, surface assumptions I haven't examined yet, and explore a wider set of framings before narrowing toward solutions. The goal is to start with a well-examined problem. Not just a convenient one.
This matters because the most expensive design mistakes happen early. A problem defined too narrowly, or defined around the wrong user, produces solutions that solve the wrong thing. AI helps me catch that before it costs weeks.
Research generates a lot of data. AI helps me make sense of it faster.
When I'm working through qualitative feedback, I use AI to identify emerging themes, generate multiple ways to cluster insights, and test whether my synthesis holds up under a different interpretation. I'm not outsourcing the judgment. I'm testing the structure of my thinking before I present it as a conclusion.
This speeds up research cycles. It also makes the findings more defensible. When I've pressure-tested the groupings, I have more confidence in what I'm recommending and why.
I've been experimenting with AI-assisted development tools, including Claude and Base44.
These platforms let me move from concept to functional prototype much earlier in the process. Interface structures, early product concepts, API-driven interactions. Things that used to require an engineering conversation now have something concrete to react to.
This isn't about replacing engineering. It's about compressing the gap between design thinking and technical reality. When you can put something in front of a stakeholder or a user earlier, you learn faster. Bad ideas get killed sooner. Good ones get refined before they're expensive.
Callboard is a direct example of this. The entire platform, designed and built by one person, made possible by working closely with AI throughout the process.
AI won't replace designers who think carefully about people and systems. But it will separate designers who use it well from those who don't.
Used well, AI helps you explore more thoroughly, synthesize more rigorously, and prototype faster. It raises the floor on early-stage thinking. The judgment, the empathy, the ability to tell a coherent product story. That's still the work. AI just gives you more material to work with, and less time wasted getting there.