Have you ever joined a team mid-project? There’s that moment when you start looking for background information, project files, and the various details you need to get up to speed. It can be a slow, painstaking process to piece together what you need to hit the ground running.
Imagine instead that you open the Slack message telling you you’re on the team and your AI assistant pops up with a message that says “It looks like you’re new to this [project] team. Do you want me to find all the related files on the company server?”
It’s a stunning change in the way AI is used. Instead of simply making recommendations or providing rote customer service, AI is anticipating your needs by assessing the work being done by you and your company, taking cues from a wide variety of internal sources. Your workflow is streamlined automatically, adapting to your new assignment.
This level of AI-powered personalization is not just a fantasy – it is quickly becoming a reality. But to achieve the maximum impact of this game-changing technology, companies need to embrace AI-driven UX.
In practical terms, what does this look like? What can a smarter, more responsive digital interface offer? And do you need to start from scratch to see results?
Predictive, Smart, and Personal
The ability to anticipate user needs is possibly the strongest improvement offered by an AI-driven user experience. It’s a significant change to the static interface users are used to, relying instead on a dynamic interface that learns the habits and patterns of its user.
On the enterprise level, this can look like the scenario in the introduction above, or like suggesting user-specific follow up tasks, such as recommending setting an appointment in the calendar (and then doing it for you) or writing an email to a certain team member (and then opening and pre-populating the email tool for you). Predictive AI will create workflows that are intuitive and seamless.
Likewise, AI-driven virtual assistants are moving away from being clunky, robotic chatbots to context- and sentiment-aware tools that are smart enough to be truly helpful – especially in areas like customer service. They have moved beyond frustrating rehashing of frequently asked questions to being able to solve problems while also parsing user sentiment and adjusting their tone... and they even now know when to hand off to human counterparts.
The approach to personalization is also changing. It's no longer enough to have a user’s name and targeted recommendations within a fixed framework of layout, content, and navigation – not when AI-powered UX allows the user interface to adapt dynamically based on context, settings, browsing history, etc.
In some ways, these AI-assisted personalization and UX changes are already ubiquitous – think of the way Netflix, Spotify, Amazon, and others use the data they have about you to provide eerily accurate recommendations for the next thing you should watch, listen to, or purchase. It’s also becoming more common in areas like travel planning, where tools like Expedia’s Trip Matching can turn a customer-submitted Instagram reel into a customized vacation itinerary, complete with flights, hotels, and sightseeing, after just a few questions. Likewise, Sephora is using AI in combination with augmented reality to provide their customers with a highly personalized cosmetics try-on experience.
A Tool for Creating Efficiencies
Along with the ways AI is changing the consumer-facing side of the digital experience, it’s also having an impact on how those experiences are created. At AgencyQ, our design team is using AI to streamline processes by making repetitive, menial tasks easier. For example, within the Figma design tool, there are AI features that can re-name layers or frames in a project as well as creating auto-layout settings for components.
It’s also useful for the discovery phase of user experience design. AI can summarize and synthesize the huge volume of research materials generated, such as notes from user interviews and listening sessions, finding themes we can use to glean insights needed for the design process. It’s also helpful as a supplement to brainstorming sessions for things like product names and logos.
By creating these efficiencies within necessary but time-consuming tasks, AI frees up our design team to put their creative efforts into higher-impact activities.
Starting the AI Transformation
With this level of change on the horizon, it can feel impossible to know where to begin. It feels like a situation where it might be necessary to rebuild from scratch – which is both daunting and expensive.
Fortunately, a full redesign isn’t always the answer to improving user experience. With the right mix of tools and processes, organizations can incrementally optimize performance and extend the life of their platforms.
AI can help you:
- Use predictive analytics to uncover where users drop off
- Deploy intelligent search and recommendations to surface the right content
- Leverage behavioral insights to guide content and design decisions
- Apply generative AI to accelerate prototyping and content creation
Pair these capabilities with modern delivery approaches like continuous optimization and A/B testing, and your existing platform can deliver more personalized, measurable outcomes -- without the cost and disruption of a full rebuild.
Conclusion – You’re More Ready Than You Think
When it comes to online user experience, AI is here to stay. It's already changing our day-to-day workflows, customer service approach, and the ways we implement personalization. But it’s a tool that allows for incremental change, where each implementation can build on the one before, so you can get started right away, without a top-to-bottom overhaul of your site.
Ready to learn how AgencyQ can help you get started? Let’s talk!