At Amplify, we believe design is a deeply human practice. AI can accelerate steps and extend our reach, but it can’t replace the skills that make our work empathetic, ethical, and trustworthy.
To help teams navigate this balance, we created a Skills Framework that maps the strengths of designers and researchers alongside the strengths of AI throughout the design process.
When teams treat AI as “all or nothing,” they either over-automate (and lose quality) or avoid AI entirely (and fall behind). This framework is our evolving POV on that balance as we use AI in new ways and discover its limitations and new strengths.
What Humans Do Best
Across framing, discovery, synthesis, concept development, and storytelling, humans bring the strengths AI cannot replicate:
- Sensemaking in ambiguity
- Ethical judgment and alignment to strategy
- Building trust with participants and stakeholders
- Weighing evidence quality and nuance
- Understanding feasibility, desirability, and organizational context
- Crafting narratives that persuade, build trust, and drive action
These are the skills that hold our work together. They’re slow to develop, hard to teach, and foundational to credibility.
Where AI Can Add Value
AI shines in areas that are repetitive, time-consuming, or cognitively heavy:
- Drafting and organizing research materials
- Cleaning and summarizing large datasets
- Exploring alternative question sets or directions
- Accelerating theme generation during synthesis
- Offering analogies or variations during concept development
- Supporting slide creation and visual storytelling
👉🏽 Download the skills framework
