Published 30 August 2026 · Source dated 1 July 2026
A Medium piece on agency workflows describes teams restructuring around "human plus helper" pairs rather than full AI swaps. The productivity and conversion stats it cites come from the author's own case studies, not an independent study.
Worth reading with a sceptical eye: this piece argues agencies aren't replacing designers with agents wholesale — instead, roughly half are redesigning roles so a person and an agent split the work, with people moving toward planning and client care while agents chew through repetitive production tasks. The productivity and conversion numbers it quotes are anecdotal, from the author's own case studies, not a published study — treat them as a claim, not a fact. What's genuinely useful: the framing of "what do I keep, what do I hand off" is a real question worth asking about your own process now, before an employer asks it for you.
Coach
Map your last design task into "judgement" vs "mechanical" steps, and note which mechanical ones you'd trust an agent with.
Jakob Nielsen's ten usability heuristics have been the backbone of UX critique since 1994. They're worth relearning properly, not just skimming the list.
AI tools can generate screens fast, but they don't validate usability — that's still on you. Classic heuristic evaluation is more relevant, not less, now that production speed has gone up.
More first drafts are arriving via AI agents, but the fundamentals of a good design critique haven't moved. IxDF's literature on critique still holds regardless of who — or what — made the first version.