What Happens to Design After AI?
Anish Acharya speaks with Microsoft VP of Design John Maeda and Impeccable founder and CEO Paul Bakaus about how AI is changing the practice of design.
The conversation explores the relationship between design and technology, the rise of AI-powered creative tools, and whether automation raises the floor, the ceiling, or both. Maeda and Bakaus discuss software craftsmanship, taste, creative judgment, and why some aspects of design may become increasingly automated while others become more valuable.
They also examine agentic workflows, the future of user experience, the role of designers in an AI-native world, and how new tools may reshape the relationship between designers, engineers, and software itself.
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Rapid Response: Make AI your co-pilot, w/Microsoft VP of Design & AI, John Maeda
Rapid Response with Bob Safian: Can you truly take advantage of AI before speaking its language? Microsoft’s VP of Design and AI, Dr. John Maeda discusses AI’s common misconceptions and its misunderstood opportunities. A veteran of AI development, John shares valuable insights for entrepreneurs about how to engage with the new technology — from overcoming trepidation to making AI work harder for you — and AI’s potential to help leaders make better decisions.
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S10:E7 - Why you should learn to speak machine (John Maeda)
We chat with John Maeda, Chief Experience Officer at Publicis Sapient, about his journey into combining art and technology, going from working in academia to silicon valley, and his new book, “How to Speak Machine: Laws of Design For a Computational Age.”
Show Links
Partner with Dev & CodeNewbie! (sponsor)
Design in Tech Report
WordPress
STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics)
Square
RISD: Rhode Island School of Design
Kleiner Perkins
Automattic
Kickstarter
Publicis Sapient
John Maeda
John Maeda is an American technologist, designer, engineer, artist, investor, author, and teacher. He is Chief Experience Officer at Publicis Sapient, the technology consulting and delivery arm of communications and marketing conglomerate Publicis. He has held positions with Automattic, the parent company of WordPress.com; the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins; served as president of the Rhode Island School of Design; and began his early career at the MIT Media Lab at the intersection of computer science and visual art. Named as one of the “75 Most Influential People of the 21st Century” by Esquire, Maeda draws on his diverse background as an MIT-trained engineer, award-winning designer, and MBA-community translator to bring people and ideas together at scale. He is the author of several celebrated books, including The Laws of Simplicity and Redesigning Leadership. He has appeared as a speaker all over the world, from Davos to Beijing to São Paulo to New York, and his talks for TED have received millions of views.