AI experience design: end user centered design of AI products, services, and ecosystems. AIXD™ fills a gap between human end users and AI developers.
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AIXD™ (“AI Experience Design”) is to design an AI assisted, AI enabled, AI led user journey (or customer journey) based on, and for the convenience and satisfaction of human end-users. It is the human user centered design of AI models, applications, workflows, products, and services. Ultimately, it is the be-all and end-all of human user experience.
UI (user interface) and UX (user experience) are terms often associated with app designs. Simply put: if a digital product were a house, UX is the structure and wiring (how it works), while UI is the paint and furniture (how it looks).
AIXD™, in the same analogy, is both the architectural blueprint for the structure of the house (UX) and its interior design (UI). But the house is custom-built for specific end users.
AIXD™ precedes UI and UX by first collecting information about what end users truly want — not what AI developers think they want. It feeds UI and UX with reliable data on preferences, expectations, pain points, and psychological or emotional profiles relevant to AI products and services.
With this user-centric approach, AIXD™ helps save time, money, and avoidable changes in developing AI models, applications, workflows, UX, and UI. It anchors AI product development on real human needs.
The book “The Philosopher in the Valley” by Michael Steinberger [1] described a real world example of the Pentagon higher ups who adopted a software that was totally inadequate for soldiers. At the same time, there was much better software available which was not approved. The soldiers and their commanders in battlefields implored the Pentagon to switch. But Pentagon leaders, who were out of touch with the end user experience, were reluctant to heed their request. Consequently, both soldier and civilian lives were lost unnecessarily. A painful case of the disconnect between the technology and the end-user experience.
As AI is rapidly developing today, there is a problem of “over enthusiasm”, per the Economist article. “J&J is an example of how the early rush to experiment with AI has evolved into something more measured. The firm started off with a let-a-thousand-flowers-bloom ethos. That led to a lot of weeds, too. According to Mr Swanson, 85% of the value generated was attributable to just 15% of these applications. J&J has now switched to a more focused approach, in which a central AI council and a data council ensure that the most fruitful projects are being nodded through and that the right data are available to make them work.”
Had J&J first engaged in research and analysis of end-user experience before jumping in with both feet, they would have avoided lots of “weeds”, waste of money, time, and resources. By the way, J&J’s centralized decision making from the top regarding which are the most “fruitful” projects, rather than from the human end users will end up growing a lot more “weeds” and waste, just like before.
We are taking the bull (AI) by the horns (XD), and forcing it to submit to the control of humanity.
We are forcing it to run down the path that serves humanity, not the other way around.
To a large extent, how you want to live your life is experience design.
How you want your Thanksgiving dinner to be made is experience design.
How you want to tour Italy or backpack in Yosemite is your own experience design.
You can ask AI to help do some part of the design, but to relinquish all control to AI is to yield the best part of living your own life. Designing your own experience is the most adventurous, creative, spiritual, and fulfilling part of living. AI can assist you, but without usurping your inalienable rights.
As agentic AI evolves toward autonomous AI native stage, it is all the more important for organizational leaders to keep the human end-user experience front and center.
While many “leaders” are in a mad dash to adopt AI without clearly defined use cases, outcomes, or ROI, it takes cool heads not to react to AI out of FOMO or hype.
What is the point of squandering your resources just to be “AI native”, while losing touch with your customers? At the end of the day, your human customers or end users decide if you survive, or thrive, or die.
AIXD™ plays an indispensable role in defining and refining the scope of AI models and applications. It’s laser focused on the outcome — the human user journey and the targeted user experience, avoiding over spending or under investment in AI tools. Whether you are leveraging LLM (large language model), or SLM (small language model) for specific tasks, genAI, AI Agents, or robots, your solutions will be like Goldilocks’s Porridge: not too hot, not too cold, just right.
AI developers who are out of touch from the real world needs of human users create AI “white elephants” that run amok. What the techy people think of as “cool” may end up as nothing more than a convoluted and resented AI dictatorship, imposed on human will and frustrating user experience.
Do you already have a white elephant AI problem?
Do you want to avoid one?
Let’s talk.
In today’s integrated global network of commerce, AI is catalyzing changes unthinkable and unimaginable in human history. AI has the intelligence and power to subjugate humanity if we let it. To avoid the sorrowful situation of AI directing and controlling humans, now is the time to subject AI to human control, to serve humanity’s user experience.
And it all starts from the beginning, before collecting data, before creating AI models, before developing AI applications. Ask: what is the end user experience the AI tool will be creating?
AIXD™, by bridging the gap between AI and humans, plays an important role in guiding AI development for the end users, with the end users, and of the end users — Humans, not machines.
Machines, however intelligent, cannot develop brand loyalty. Brand experience is entirely a Human experience. AIXD™ is user experience; user experience is brand experience.
With 16 years of brand experience design rooted in brand DNA decoding and business model analysis, 10 Plus Brand, Inc. is a global leader in brand building and brand marketing. Human user experience design, AIXD™, brand experience, brand loyalty, and brand journey are part of the comprehensive offerings of 10 Plus Brand, Inc.
Founder and CEO Joanne Z. Tan mentors Silicon Valley startups, founders, CEOs, and boards as a thought leadership coach in the AI age. 10 Plus Brand is at the forefront of creating end-user journeys through AI Experience Design for B2B and B2C companies.
Subscribe to our FREE Newsletter for more insights.
If you need to discuss 1:1, please use the contact form on AIXD.world. Thank you.
© Joanne Z. Tan, November, 2025. All rights reserved.
[1] Steinberger, Michael. The Philosopher in the Valley: Alex Karp, Palantir, and the Rise of the Surveillance State. Avid Reader Press, 2025. pp. 132–135.