Human-first software.

Published Aug 27, 2025 · Around 2 minutes to read

Here are some of my thoughts on building good AI, in no particular order:

1. Once you get past the flashy demos, good AI is 80% traditional software development.
2. Good designs start off as poor imitations of an existing solution. Think of when smartphones first came out. Websites were crammed into a tiny phone and were almost unusable. Responsive design was the reaction to this new reality.
3. AI Agents will be the responsive design of this era.
4. Systems thinking is the most powerful tool in a designer’s toolkit.
5. Humans won’t be replaced, but jobs will be transformed.
6. Human intuition and experience still matter.
7. Agent workflows must be extremely calculated (few steps, human verification, pattern recognition). This goes against how AI is marketed as this independent, freeform thinking machine. AI need extreme guardrails because there are hidden costs (compounding errors, token economics, and legacy code).
8. Death to forms. We don’t need to be constrained to precise inputs, or repeatedly entering our same information on multiple websites/apps. These are the kind of boring / tedious tasks that should be offloaded to AI.
9. Designers should get comfortable with code. If code is scary, graph / node builders are a good substitute (n8n).
10. Find someone that can design and build agents. You need both. Designing the Agent Experience (AX) provides clarity and confidence before investing in a full agent build (hint: we do this).

I finished reading “No Bullsh*t Strategy” last week, and my mind has been racing on how to position design within the AI space. The main takeaway from the book is to create S P A C E that's completely away from your competitors (think Blue Ocean Strategy).

I believe design is that differentiator.

Here’s my WIP argument: Treat AI agents as humans, and design things for them as you would for a human. This will result in better experiences for actual humans.

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P.S. The book is a surprisingly short read. Plus the excellent Notion templates you get are worth the price of admission. Also, follow Alex M H Smith.

P.P.S. Thanks Gabrielle Merite for the excellent book recommendation.