Column: Conscious Experience Design

In early 2025, the buzzword dominating in corporate circles is agentic artificial intelligence (AI). Many organizations are now creating new departments and special initiatives; and any article that talks about AI regularly includes the term. But what exactly is agentic AI, and how do we, as UX designers, approach it?

Agentic AI represents a significant evolution from traditional AI models. Instead of merely automating individual tasks, agentic AI systems can operate semi-independently, executing a multitude of tasks that require decision-making, analysis, and adaptation. This shift allows businesses to assign AI agents to collections of functions and even to cover entire roles with minimal human intervention.

But the transformation goes beyond automation. It signals a fundamental shift in computing itself. We are progressing from a world of fixed, app-based user experiences to a dynamic, learning-driven ecosystem in which AI agents proactively assist and respond to users and evolve over time. Read More

Companies are racing to integrate artificial intelligence (AI) into every facet of their operations to streamline workflows, optimize resources, enhance customer experiences, and compete in their market. With 42% of global companies already integrating AI into their products or services and another 40% exploring implementation, the future seems to be arriving at warp speed.

But amidst all the excitement, a critical question emerges: Is AI living up to the hype? Are companies seeing the return on investment (ROI) that AI promises? According to recent data, only 26% of the organizations that have adopted AI have moved beyond proofs of concept to produce measurable business value. The reality is that the pace of adoption and value generation is moving more slowly than businesses have predicted, despite the hype and promise.

As is typical with major technological shifts, we are at the stage where investments outweigh returns and rapid experimentation is the norm. Companies are jumping on the bandwagon, assuming that AI will magically solve their problems and accelerate revenues and margins. But there is a catch: early AI solutions have focused more on the novelty of the technology than on measurable substance and long-term impacts. Read More

As UX designers, along with the rest of the world today, we’re hyperaware of the impact and momentum of generative artificial intelligence (AI)—so much so that we’re now wondering whether people might be focusing so much on a few trees that they’re forgetting to consider the forest. Allow me to explain. While AI is undeniably a sea change in computing, it ultimately represents a much broader revolution in which technology is becoming more human centric and human conscious. Essentially, technology is now learning to adapt to people, as opposed to people needing to learn and adapt to new technologies.

As part of this shift, technology is expanding not only its cognitive abilities but also its sensory, social, and ethical capabilities. Within the expansion of technology’s sensory abilities, we’re seeing advancements and growth in spatial computing. Spatial context and movement within three-dimensional spaces are core human-sensory abilities, and thus, likely new growth areas in humanizing machine interactions. Spatial computing has emerged as one of the most compelling paradigms that are melding with AI—so compelling that we can consider it the third wave of interactions in personal computing. Read More