Designing the Future Designer: A Speculative Workshop on Identity, Agency, and Craft in an AI-First World

The job description for “designer” is being rewritten in real time by AI. So who’s writing yours?

In this hands-on workshop, Elizabeth Glenewinkel and Justin Rheinfrank pose provocations on the future of design for you to challenge, debunk or embrace. They draw on two workshops they’ve led for the Jacobs Institute for Design Innovation and Salesforce on design and research capabilities needed in the emerging field of designing with and for agents. We know our role is changing, and reactions range from anxiety to agency. This session is part sparring match, part design sprint, and all about the question our industry is grappling with: what happens when the bottleneck shifts from making to choosing?

The workshop:

We start with speculations about where design is heading. They are uncomfortable and intentionally arguable. We’ll push back, debate, and surface the orthodoxies baked into our own practices.

We’ll then design an archetype for the future designer: What will they study? What skills will actually matter? What agents will they build, manage and possibly answer to? What will they make, read, and who will they follow? These aren’t hypotheticals. They’re the decisions shaping design hiring, education, and practice right now.

We’ll wrap up by sharing and reflecting on the most intriguing designer archetypes and what they reveal about the current state of our practice.

Led by:

Justin Rheinfrank is a design leader and educator whose work spans product design, AI interaction, and design strategy. He is Principal Architect of UI/UX at Slack, where he leads design for Slackbot, Slack’s agentic AI interface. He has taught at UC Berkeley’s Jacobs Institute for Design Innovation, California College of the Arts, Stanford’s d.school, and has worked with clients including Apple, Samsung, Google, Disney, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Elizabeth Glenewinkel is a design educator and research leader whose work spans studio pedagogy, human-centered design, and design strategy. She is Senior Adjunct Faculty at UC Berkeley’s Jacobs Institute for Design Innovation and the Design MBA Program at the California College of the Arts. She spent nearly a decade at Salesforce leading global research and innovation teams. She has spoken at Stanford’s d.school, SXSW, and Dreamforce, among others.

Who should attend: Designers, design leaders, educators, and anyone who suspects the next five years will change this profession more than the last twenty and wants to have a say in how.

FYI: Arrivals can show up at 6 pm. We’ll start the workshop at 6:30 pm and end at 8 pm. Lite snacks and drinks provided.