Last week, at a London Content Design Meetup that I host, along with Eleanor, something powerful happened.

We stopped whispering about AI and started really talking. Not just about the hype. Not just about fear. But about what’s actually happening, happening right now, in our work as content designers, product designers, and thinkers shaping the digital world.

Our meet-up wasn’t a panel or a keynote event. No. It was a space created for real, honest, and sometimes uncomfortable conversations. And that’s exactly what made it so vital.

AI isn’t coming. It’s already here.

Let’s be honest; we’re all using AI in some capacity. It’s summarising workshops, writing user stories, translating content, analysing tone of voice, creating templates, and speeding up research. It’s not something on the horizon; it’s already in our browsers and design stacks.

And yet, as we continued discussing AI, one thing became clear: AI is already influencing user experience, but content designers aren’t always at the table when these tools are developed.

That’s a problem. Because AI is content. And who understands content better than us?

So why are we still hesitating?

Some of us admitted feeling ashamed for using AI, worried it might be seen as lazy or “cutting corners.” Personally, I don’t think anyone should be made to feel ashamed for using AI.

Others were excited but cautious, unsure where to begin.

What struck me most was the space in between: a place of curiosity and scepticism. A place where we can ask better questions, even if we don’t have all the answers.

That’s not fear. That’s maturity.

“If AI isn’t telling the truth, what is it doing? And what does that mean for people who care deeply about clarity, trust, and truth?”

Someone asked this during the session, and it stopped me in my tracks.

Because we’re not just content designers. We’re simplifiers. We’re system thinkers. We’re people who connect the dots and communicate with purpose. And that’s exactly what AI needs right now.

We’ve been here before

To me, this moment feels a lot like the early days of social media, full of potential, packed with risk, and moving way too fast.

But this time, we can do better. We can design this future with more foresight, more ethics, and more inclusion.

If we show up.

So, what does showing up look like?

It means:

  • Using AI to reduce admin, so we can focus on solving real user needs
  • Testing AI tools like Miro AI to summarise insights and improve our prompts
  • Interrogating bias, not just accepting outputs at face value
  • Recognising that AI is only as good as the data, it’s fe,d and right now, that data skews narrow
  • Pushing for tools that reflect everyone, not just native English speakers or default users
  • Being transparent about what works, what doesn’t, and what we’re still figuring out

Most importantly, it means refusing to sit this one out.

Because if we don’t shape AI, others will, and they might not bring the same care for clarity, inclusion, and trust that we do.

We’re not replacing ourselves. We’re expanding our impact.

At the meetup, I saw something energising: no one was blindly worshipping AI. But no one was writing it off, either.

We were questioning it. Probing it. Testing it. Owning it.

AI isn’t the enemy. It’s an opportunity. Not to automate ourselves out of relevance but to embed our values deeper into the systems we’re helping to build.

This is our moment

Let’s stop watching from the sidelines and start shaping what comes next.

Let’s share more experiments. Create more spaces for dialogue. Push back when things don’t feel right. And lean in when it’s time to lead.

Because AI is here and it needs our voices, our ethics, and our imagination.

It needs designers who understand systems and stories. Who care about clarity, inclusion, and trust.

And it needs us now before the decisions are made without us.

Let’s rise. Let’s lead. Let’s design the future before it designs us.

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AI is Here. And It Needs Us was originally published in UX Planet on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.