I’m thinking about submitting a talk for Config 2026 titled
“The Future Director: Leading Design Teams When AI Designs Faster Than You.”
The idea explores how design leadership changes when AI can create faster than humans. It focuses on how we move from managing output to shaping intelligence, and from approving pixels to orchestrating collaboration between people and machines.
Still shaping the narrative — but curious what you think.
Would this resonate with today’s design leaders and teams?
The Future Director: Leading Design Teams When AI Designs Faster Than You
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Config 2026 submission
Session Description
AI now drafts, tests, and iterates faster than any team ever could. But speed alone does not equal strategy. In this talk, UX leader Aaron Usiskin explores what it means to lead design when generative tools and autonomous systems can out-produce designers in seconds.
This is not about fearing automation. It is about redefining what design leadership means in an era of shared intelligence between humans and machines. From building AI-assisted design systems to orchestrating cross-disciplinary collaboration, Aaron shows how leaders can create cultures where creativity, ethics, and data coexist, and where design becomes the connective tissue of the enterprise.
Attendees will walk away with a new framework for leadership: how to move from maker to multiplier, from approver to orchestrator, and from managing output to shaping intelligence.
Outline (20–25 minutes)
1. The New Speed of Design (5 min)
- The evolution from design sprints to design seconds
- How tools like Figma AI, SynthDesign™, and adaptive pattern libraries are changing the definition of “done”
- The hidden cost of speed: alignment, strategy, and ethics often lag behind
2. From Designers to Design Intelligence (6 min)
- What happens when AI learns from your best patterns but not your best judgment
- How to train systems to reflect brand and empathy
- Why governance is the new creativity: managing systems that design themselves
3. Leading Teams That Do Not Need You to Approve Every Pixel (6 min)
- Moving from command-and-control to orchestration
- Redefining success metrics around outcomes, not deliverables
- Coaching designers to become curators and editors of machine-generated work
4. Rebuilding Trust: Human and AI Collaboration (5 min)
- How transparency builds confidence across disciplines such as engineering, marketing, and data
- Ethics, accessibility, and the designer’s new social contract
- Real-world examples of design systems enhanced through AI analysis and insight
5. What’s Next: The Future Director Mindset (3 min)
- SynthDesign™ as a blueprint for human-machine creativity
- The rise of the “Experience Intelligence Officer”
- The closing message: The best leaders will not compete with AI. They will choreograph it.