What We Learned at EX FEST Round Table #1: How Agencies Are Changing the Design Market for Business

On April 17, 2026, during EXFEST - Experience Festival in Warsaw, Magdalena Ostoja-Chyżyńska, CEO & Founder of UX GIRL, delivered a presentation titled The Era of Enablers: The End of the Delivery Era and the New Role of Product Professionals. Rather than focusing on specific UX methods or design trends, the talk explored a broader transformation that is currently changing the way digital products are built and how product teams operate.

The presentation offered a perspective on how technology has shaped professional roles over the last three decades and why artificial intelligence may be initiating another significant shift in the industry.

From the Era of Webmasters to the Era of Specialists

Magdalena began by taking the audience back to the early years of the internet. During the 1990s and early 2000s, a single webmaster was often responsible for nearly every aspect of building and maintaining a digital product. Design, development, analytics, databases, copywriting and graphics frequently belonged to one role. 

As technology evolved and digital products became more sophisticated, organizations responded through specialization. New professions emerged, including UX designers, UI designers, UX writers, frontend and backend developers, testers, product owners and project managers. What was once handled by a single person gradually became distributed across entire teams of specialists. 

This evolution brought many benefits. Specialized knowledge enabled companies to build more advanced products, improve quality and create better experiences for users. However, it also introduced new challenges. Teams became larger, processes became more complex and communication between disciplines became increasingly important.

AI as a New Turning Point

According to Magdalena, artificial intelligence represents another major turning point in this story.

For years, the industry moved toward narrower and narrower specializations. Today, AI tools are allowing professionals to cross many of these boundaries once again. Designers can generate interfaces and prototypes faster than ever. Developers can use AI-assisted coding tools. Researchers can process large volumes of information more efficiently. Product teams can analyze data, create reports and explore new ideas with significantly less effort. 

This does not mean that expertise is disappearing. Instead, AI acts as a force multiplier that enables individuals to accomplish tasks that previously required multiple specialists or significantly more time. The presentation described AI not as a replacement for human work but as a technology that expands human potential.

What Has AI Actually Changed?

One of the central sections of the presentation focused on four major changes introduced by AI.The first is abundance. AI can generate enormous quantities of content, ideas, designs, code and solutions. For many organizations, the challenge is no longer producing options but selecting the right ones. In a world where almost anyone can create something, the ability to evaluate, prioritize and curate becomes increasingly valuable. 

The second change is speed. Tasks that once required days of work can now be completed within hours or even minutes. This acceleration allows teams to spend less time on repetitive execution and more time on strategic thinking. 

Third, AI expands capabilities. Professionals are no longer restricted by the traditional boundaries of their role. A designer can better understand technical implementation. A developer can participate more actively in product discussions. A product manager can explore data and research in greater depth. AI makes multidisciplinary work more accessible. 

Finally, AI brings teams closer to business. When routine tasks become easier to execute, more attention can be directed toward customer needs, business goals, key metrics and long-term product strategy. 

The End of the Delivery Era

A particularly interesting message from the presentation concerned the traditional understanding of productivity in product organizations. For years, many teams were evaluated primarily on their ability to deliver. Success was measured through completed tasks, released features and executed roadmaps. However, when AI reduces the effort required to build, design and analyze, simply delivering outputs becomes less of a competitive advantage.

Instead, organizations increasingly need people who can identify meaningful opportunities, define valuable problems to solve and connect business objectives with user needs. The discussion shifts from “Can we build it?” to “Should we build it?” and “What impact will it create?” This represents a significant change in how product work is understood.

Moving Closer to Business Outcomes

Another important theme of the presentation was the growing relationship between product teams and business strategy. Magdalena highlighted that modern product professionals need to understand not only interfaces and features but also objectives, key results and company priorities. The presentation showed how daily tasks should connect to broader business goals and measurable outcomes rather than existing as isolated activities. 

In this context, AI becomes a tool that helps teams move beyond operational work and participate more actively in strategic decision-making. Product, design and technology professionals are expected to understand business problems and contribute directly to solving them.

The Rise of the Enabler

The concept that tied the entire presentation together was the idea of the “Enabler.” An enabler is someone who uses technology, knowledge and collaboration to unlock value for others. Rather than focusing exclusively on one specialization, enablers connect disciplines, facilitate decision-making and help organizations achieve meaningful results.

The future may therefore belong less to narrowly defined specialists and more to professionals capable of combining different perspectives, leveraging AI effectively and translating complexity into business impact.

Final Thoughts

Magdalena Ostoja-Chyżyńska’s presentation offered an optimistic view of the future of product work. While artificial intelligence is undoubtedly changing established ways of working, it is also creating new opportunities for growth and innovation.

The key message was not that specialization is becoming obsolete, but that the role of professionals is evolving. As AI takes over more repetitive and operational activities, people can focus on strategy, creativity, problem-solving and business impact.

The era of simply delivering work may be coming to an end. What emerges in its place is the Era of Enablers — professionals who use technology not only to build products, but to create meaningful value for users, teams and organizations.

In the late 90s, the digital world was ruled by the Webmaster. This single individual was a true generalist, handling everything from graphic design to database configuration and raw coding. As the internet matured, the market demanded more complexity, leading to an era of intense specialization. We built silos, separating the ux designer, ui designer, front end developer, database manager, and data scientist into distinct departments.

While specialization allowed for scale, it also created friction. Today, however, we are witnessing a full-circle evolution. The Era of Enablers (or as I like to call them, Architects of Potential) has arrived, powered by the explosive rise of AI.

Collapsing the Silos

AI is effectively removing the technical barriers that once forced us into narrow boxes. With generative tools handling the "heavy lifting" of syntax and execution, a single builder can once again oversee the entire product lifecycle. This isn't just about efficiency; it's about proximity.

When the person designing the experience is also the one enabling the build, the distance between a concept and a finished product vanishes. More importantly, the distance between the creator and the decision makers disappears.

Why This Matters for Your Career

In this new landscape, being "just" a specialist is a risky strategy. By becoming an "Enabler," you move:

• Closer to the Business: You aren't just delivering assets; you are driving KPIs.
• From "How" to "Why": Your value shifts from knowing a specific programming language to having deep product intuition and systems thinking.
• Toward Strategic Impact: You become a strategic partner to the business, capable of turning ideas into reality at the speed of thought.

The market is no longer looking for cogs in a machine. It is looking for architects who can leverage AI to build the future. The era of the fragmented specialist is fading; the era of the Architect of Potential is here.

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Artificial intelligence is no longer a distant promise for design teams-it is already reshaping how designers think, collaborate, and create. This shift was the focus of a talk delivered by Magdalena Ostoja‑Chyżyńska, CEO & Founder of UX GIRL, during Data Science Summit, one of the key events bringing together experts from data, technology, and digital innovation.

In her presentation, “How AI and Enhanced Data Access are Transforming Today’s Design,” Magdalena explored how artificial intelligence is influencing modern design practice-not as a replacement for human creativity, but as a force that is redefining how design teams work with data, insights, and complex business requirements

Design at the Intersection of AI and Data

The talk addressed a challenge many organizations currently face: how to integrate AI into design processes without reducing originality or oversimplifying complex user problems. As Magdalena explained, the growing accessibility of data and AI models has fundamentally changed how designers approach tasks such as briefing, user research, insight synthesis, requirements definition, and asset creation.

Rather than treating AI as a purely visual or generative tool, the presentation positioned it as a broader design accelerator-one that influences decision-making long before the first interface is drawn.

Insights from Real Client Projects

A key strength of the session was its grounding in real business practice. Drawing from ongoing client work at UX GIRL, Magdalena shared observations from testing different AI tools and models across multiple stages of the design process. These experiments focused on understanding where AI genuinely supports creative and analytical work, and where its limitations become visible in real-world conditions.

During the talk, she referenced commonly used tools such as Midjourney, ChatGPT, Claude, and Recraft, explaining how they were evaluated not in isolation, but in combination with different types of data and project constraints. The emphasis was not on novelty, but on effectiveness-how these tools behave when confronted with incomplete data, ambiguous requirements, or complex stakeholder expectations.

Creativity, Control, and the Role of Data

One of the central themes of the presentation was the relationship between AI output and data quality. Magdalena highlighted that AI-driven design outcomes are only as strong as the data and context provided to the models. Enhanced access to data can dramatically improve speed and clarity, but it also increases the responsibility of design teams to curate, interpret, and challenge that data rather than accept AI-generated results at face value.

The session made it clear that AI does not remove the need for designers’ judgment. On the contrary, it amplifies the importance of critical thinking, domain knowledge, and ethical responsibility in design decisions.

Why This Talk Resonated at Data Science Summit

Presenting this topic at a data-focused conference was intentional. The session connected two worlds that often operate separately: design and data science. By showing how AI is already embedded in everyday design workflows, Magdalena demonstrated that design maturity today increasingly depends on data literacy and cross‑disciplinary collaboration.

For many attendees, the talk offered a rare perspective-AI discussed not from a purely technical standpoint, but through the lens of practical design leadership and real client constraints.

Looking Ahead

The presentation reinforced UX GIRL’s position at the intersection of design, data, and emerging technology. Rather than following trends, the studio actively tests and evaluates new tools in live projects, translating experimentation into informed design decisions.

As AI continues to evolve, the questions raised during this session remain highly relevant: how to preserve originality, how to use data responsibly, and how to ensure that technology strengthens-not flattens-the impact of design.

For those interested in how AI is shaping the future of design beyond surface-level automation, the work and insights shared by UX GIRL offer a grounded and experience-driven perspective.