UXMA @ UX Nordic 2026

Arriving in Aarhus, we were immediately immersed in the city’s vibrant atmosphere. This is not meant to be a travel report for your next city tour, yet our impressions of Aarhus were very much part of the overall experience. It is a colorful, lively city with plenty to learn from. The cityscape, especially in the Aarhus C harbor district, is shaped by a consistent commitment to sustainable mobility, a strong presence of well-developed cycling infrastructure, and bold, sometimes unconventional architecture. It is a clear reflection of how much space is being created here for new ideas. Aarhus is visibly growing and evolving, while at the same time feeling open-minded and willing to experiment.

These first impressions of diversity, movement, and innovation immediately put us in exactly the right mindset for the two days ahead: UX Nordic.

Above all, the conference felt like a very clear snapshot of how profoundly our industry is changing right now. The dominant topic across talks and discussions was artificial intelligence and the ways it is reshaping how we work, how we structure processes, and how we think about our field.

Much of the focus was on what using AI already means for our day-to-day work. Many sessions made it clear just how naturally AI has become embedded in different areas: from ideation and prototyping to research and development. In that sense, the conference was not only inspiring, but also served as a kind of reality check: where do we currently stand as an industry, and where are we heading?

The pace has increased dramatically. What used to take days or even weeks can now be achieved, visualized, or turned into first tangible outcomes in a fraction of the time. Ideas become visible faster, prototypes are built more quickly, and variations can be tested much sooner. At the same time, it became clear that it is not only tools and processes that are changing, but also the roles within product development. The boundaries between design, development, and research are becoming more fluid, traditional responsibilities are shifting, and new, more hybrid ways of working are emerging.

Processes, too, are undergoing fundamental change. Linear workflows are losing relevance, while iterative and dynamic approaches are becoming the norm. Decisions are made earlier, discarded faster, and continuously refined. For us, this was a strong indication of just how much the UX world is currently reorganizing itself — professionally, methodologically, and in everyday collaboration.

Another compelling idea was the concept of “Empathic UX.” It explored how interfaces could use AI to respond dynamically to users. By analyzing behavior during use, systems can infer possible emotional states and adapt colors, content, or layouts accordingly, for example, to reduce cognitive overload or make interactions feel smoother and more supportive. This was not a central theme of the conference for us, but it offered an interesting glimpse into how AI-driven interaction could evolve in the future.

A broader question that surfaced across many talks was this: how do you stay focused when suddenly almost anything seems possible? From our perspective, that is one of the biggest challenges. AI opens up an enormous range of possibilities, but not every one of them automatically leads to a better user experience. The risk of getting lost in endless options or building solutions for their own sake is very real.

And that leads us to what was, for us, the conference’s most important takeaway: just because AI seems to make almost anything possible, the core of UX must not get lost.

In the end, it does not really matter whether an application uses AI, or whether it was created with the help of AI. What matters is the value it creates for the people using it. Trust, clarity, and genuine usefulness must remain at the center.

That is why the role of designers is by no means becoming obsolete — quite the opposite. It is changing, and in many respects becoming even more important. AI can accelerate processes, take over repetitive tasks, spark ideas, and help teams reach outcomes faster. But it does not take responsibility off our shoulders.

On the second day, we joined Zamina Ahmad’s workshop “AI-Power Prototyping & Future Skills.” Here, too, many of the ideas and observations from the previous day were picked up and reinforced. At the same time, it became clear how we can use this development in a meaningful way for our own work.

Throughout the workshop, we were able to do more than just understand these ideas in theory. We tested them ourselves through concrete tasks and examples. Zamina provided a prompt template that we had to adapt to our own use case. It quickly became clear that even if AI speeds up many parts of the process, good results do not appear at the push of a button.

By the end, each group had developed a small start-up concept and created an initial interactive prototype for it. At first glance, that may sound fast and easy, almost inviting the question: if all of this can be done so easily, what do we still need designers for? But that was not the impression we were left with. What emerged was not a final, ready-for-development product. It was an initial clickable prototype that made the core concept ideas visible and tangible. Not a pixel-perfect app, not a mature design system, not a fully thought-through UX concept, and not a comprehensively defined feature set.

Even to reach that first stage, we still went through many steps that clearly belong to a classic design process:

• identifying the problem

• developing an idea with clear value for a specific user group

• formulating key assumptions

• identifying potential challenges

• defining personas and pain points

• generating ideas for possible solutions

• creating hypotheses and mapping out a user journey

• brand develipment

All of this happened with AI support, but not without our own judgment. Of course, we took some shortcuts because of the limited time in the workshop. Even so, we still reviewed results, questioned them, refined them, and made conscious decisions throughout the process.

The two days at UX Nordic once again showed us that, as an industry, we are in the midst of an exciting and far-reaching transformation. Yes, our profession is changing. But that is nothing new. Our job had already started to evolve shortly after we graduated, and with every new tool and every new technology, the way we work continues to change as well.

AI will continue to shape our work in the tools we use, the processes we follow, and the roles we take on. At the same time, both the conference and the workshop confirmed for us that the core of good UX work has not changed.

Great user experience does not emerge from technological possibilities alone, but from deliberate and thoughtful design. It happens when we understand what users truly need, when we create real value, and when we take responsibility for the quality of our solutions. AI supports us, accelerates processes, and helps us develop, test, and refine initial concepts and prototypes more quickly. It can inspire and provide new impulses. But at this point, it does not replace experience or judgment. We are still the ones who evaluate, prioritize, question critically, and make decisions.

This also includes building trust — not only with users, but equally within teams, with clients, and across organizations. Because using AI in a meaningful way requires not only acceptance, but also a shared understanding of quality and a responsible approach to these new possibilities.