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June 17, 2025
June 17, 2025
In May, the Dscout team headed to Config 2025 to connect with UX designers, researchers, and human-centered thinkers across the globe.
We tuned into a number of excellent sessions including Andy Welfle’s, “Writing is Designing,” and Subham Agarwal’s, “When Products Must Die”. Unsurprisingly, one theme was a consistent throughline—GenAI.
At our booth, we wanted to get a pulse of how UXers see AI fitting into the design process.
With about 98 responses, here are some of the ways UXers are using GenAI as a tool…
AI as a thought partner is a widespread use case. Folks turn to it to get out of a creative rut, spitball ideas, and use the feedback from the tool as a starting point to further craft and develop a design.
One Config attendee expressed…
“I think AI will help us in the ideation process because sometimes we are so, I don't know, stressed out. We don't have fresh ideas to generate them, and sometimes we are pressured about generating more and more, and maybe AI would help us do that.”
With pressing deadlines, GenAI can help spark creativity or provide a fresh perspective when faced with a creative block.
While some folks really enjoy the analysis process, others are overwhelmed by dozens or hundreds of participant entries.
Config attendees expressed that tools like AI transcription, tagging, and highlighting themes save them hours (or even weeks!) sorting through the raw data and highlighting standout themes.
Folks said that this was a great starting point, but they emphasized that it was just that—a starting point. They needed to jump in and assess its accuracy and ensure that the most accurate themes were being pulled before deeming the information “actionable insights.”
Taking idea generation a step further, many Config attendees shared that they use AI to outline content, proofread copy, and ensure their copy is on brand.
Whether they’re using it to draft blog posts, build landing pages, or reformat presentations, AI has been a huge asset in cutting down writers’ block and helps users get their ideas to paper more quickly.
Beyond getting ideas onto paper, a number of Config attendees expressed how helpful GenAI has been for prototyping.
GenAI helps designers get a quick gauge of how viable their idea is before requesting support from engineering.
One attendee expressed…
“I think that AI is only making me a better designer by allowing me to riff on ideas easier, create clickable prototypes without engineering help, and I think it's able to come up with ideas that maybe I wouldn't.”
A variety of Config attendees expressed how valuable they find AI’s ability to source and summarize information. Whether that be across the internet or across their own research repositories, GenAI-backed tools have saved users hours of work sorting through information and highlighting the information they want to use as a jumping off point.
Beyond desk research, folks also shared how GenAI has helped them cut back on ops work. Summarizing emails, scheduling meetings, and note taking are a few areas where AI has saved researchers and designers a lot of time. When it comes down to it, AI isn’t taking on the design work, but freeing up designers to get to the meat of their practice instead.
One attendee expressed…
“I think AI is a great partner as an aggregator. So specifically just collecting data from all sorts of places, our own research, the Internet, sourcing those up to me in a cleaner way.”
While speed and efficiency matter, most people we spoke with weren’t looking to replace their work with AI tools—they were looking to elevate it.
Designers aren’t interested in AI stepping into full-fledged design, research, or writing roles. Instead, they use it as a collaborative partner to help them spend less time doing the things they have to do, and more time doing the tasks they want to do.
Whether that’s sketching first drafts, sourcing relevant data, or summarizing emails, AI helps them sort through the noise, ultimately allowing for more creative work.
And at the end of the day, who doesn’t want to focus more on the fun parts of their job?
