Designing FOR AI vs. Designing WITH AI

Welcome back to my “AI for Decision-Makers” series, where we demystify artificial intelligence and show how businesses can make smart, ethical, and exciting decisions about AI adoption.

In this article, we’re looking at two concepts; Designing for AI and Designing with AI.

These two approaches changed how I think about product and service design, and if you are a digital leader, strategist, or innovator, they might also shape how you plan your roadmap, teams, and tech stack too.

Part 1: Designing FOR AI – When AI Becomes Your User

Designing for AI means treating artificial intelligence as a user or consumer of your design. It’s about building systems, interfaces, and infrastructures that support the AI in performing tasks on behalf of humans.

Imagine you’re building:

• A tool that recommends personalised products based on past behaviour
• A chatbot that triages customer service queries
• A fraud detection system that processes huge data sets in milliseconds

You’re not designing for a human at the front-end. You’re designing for an AI agent to interpret, infer, act, and maybe even explain itself.

This approach has huge implications.

What Designing FOR AI Means for Businesses

When AI becomes your “user”, your role involves:

• Providing structured, clean data.
• Creating explainable interactions, so humans trust outcomes
• Designing for continuous learning and model updates
• Ensuring ethical decision boundaries

You are not just thinking about buttons and journeys. You’re designing entire systems of logic, governance and feedback loops.

For example, if your e-commerce platform uses AI to personalise the homepage for each visitor, the design team must consider how that AI gets trained, how it presents information, and how users can override or adjust what they see.

Part 2: Designing WITH AI – Letting AI Join Your Team

Now, flip the coin.

Designing with AI means using AI as a creative partner, a co-pilot, a superpowered assistant in your design process.

This is where it gets seriously exciting.

Think of AI tools that help:

• Generate hundreds of wireframe ideas
• Test usability by simulating different user behaviours
• Summarise research from 20 user interviews in 2 minutes
• Write accessible alt-text or microcopy suggestions in your wireframes
• Assist developers in coding front-end components faster

In these cases, AI isn’t your “user”, it’s your design buddy!!! It boosts efficiency, reduces bottlenecks, and empowers your team to think bigger and move faster.

Why This is a Strategic Advantage

Designing with AI helps businesses:

• Speed up time-to-market.
• Reduce design and development costs.
• Enhance creativity by reducing busywork.
• Increase accessibility and inclusivity.
• Keep teams focused on high-value thinking, not repetitive tasks.

For businesses under pressure to innovate, this approach is a game-changer!

I use AI tools daily and I can honestly say they have reshaped my workflow. They have made space for deeper thinking, better collaboration and faster iteration.

The Magic Happens When You Do Both

Here is the real key. The most forward-thinking businesses do not choose between these two approaches: they embrace both.

They:

• Design their platforms to empower and work in harmony with AI systems (for AI).
• Equip their teams with AI-enhanced tools to deliver better, faster work (with AI).

This creates a continuous feedback loop of innovation. You build smarter products, faster. You learn from real-time AI insights. And you refine your offerings continuously, with far less friction.

Real-World Scenarios: What This Looks Like in Action

Let’s consider a digital product for supply chain management. Here is how this dual approach might play out:

Designing FOR AI:

• Build dashboards that feed high-quality logistics data to predictive AI models.
• Design outputs that can be interpreted and adjusted by humans. For example, consider “Why did the AI delay that shipment?”
• Ensure the AI’s actions are traceable and aligned with company ethics or policy.

Designing WITH AI:

• Use AI during early workshops. Map user journeys or pain points based on data.
• Leverage content tools to auto-generate reports or dashboard descriptions.
• Ask an AI assistant to simulate user flows for different scenarios during prototyping.

Both perspectives lead to better decision-making, faster delivery, and stronger alignment between product and business goals.

Where to Begin? Start With an Audit

A great first step is to map your current digital services and workflows. Ask these questions:

• Where are we already using AI, even unknowingly?
• Are we building products that leverage AI effectively?
• Could our teams be using AI more efficiently during delivery?

Use our free AI Readiness Checklist to identify gaps and opportunities across your organisation.

Don’t Just Use AI: Design With Intention

AI is not just a plug-and-play solution. It represents a shift in thinking. A shift in how we design, who we design for, and what our teams are capable of achieving.

Whether you want to build intelligent products, run a lean digital team, or are looking for a competitive edge, thinking about designing FOR AI and designing WITH AI gives you the frameworks to unlock that potential.