You’re Not Just Shipping AI—You’re Designing a Relationship
Jake McKee | May 1, 2025
Read time: 5 minutes
An introduction to AI Experience Design (AIX) for product leaders
Let’s be honest: the last 18 months have been chaos.
AI features were greenlit fast. Product teams were told to “just get something out there.” And now, many Product Managers and Chief Product Owners are looking at what shipped and asking the question that somehow got skipped:
What kind of relationship are we creating with our users with our AI tools and platforms?
Because make no mistake: people are forming relationships with your AI. When systems start to suggest, adapt, or even initiate, the interaction isn’t just transactional—it’s relational. The moment your product responds with nuance, context, or emotion, users stop treating it like a tool and start treating it like a creative and critical partner.
And that’s the moment you’re doing AI Experience Design (AIX), whether you realize it or not.
What is AIX?
AI Experience Design (AIX) is the emerging discipline focused on intentionally designing the relationship between humans and intelligent systems.
It’s not just about UI/UX. Or Human Factors. Or prompt tuning. Or chatbot tone. It’s about shaping the entire arc of trust, emotion, behavior, and expectation that forms when a person engages with AI. That arc is a relationship…and like any relationship, it can be thoughtful or confusing, empowering or disorienting.
AIX is the practice of making sure your AI shows up like a partner, not a puzzle.
And in product orgs, AIX is the missing layer between “I guess it works” and “people can’t work without it.”
Why product leaders should care
If you’re a PM, PO, or CPO, you’re responsible for more than just the next feature release. You’re responsible for how your users feel about the product you’re building.
Now that AI is in the mix, the stakes are higher. People don’t just want output—they want reassurance, clarity, emotional cues. They want to know: Can I trust this? Does it understand me? Will it get better over time?
These aren’t UX problems. They’re relationship challenges.
Relationships are the product now
Think about your own relationships, at work, at home, even with your favorite brands.
Great relationships are built on:
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Trust – I know what to expect
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Tone – You speak to me like a person, not a robot
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Adaptation – You change as I change
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Repair – You own your mistakes and get better over time
Now imagine an AI product doing the same.
That’s AIX. And when done well, it becomes a core differentiator—not just a design nicety. Because in a world of endless AI features, the ones that feel humanistic are the ones people will remember.
Six AIX principles every product org needs to know
- Design the relationship, not just the interface
Build systems that don’t just work but also connect. Map emotional states, trust signals, and behavioral arcs the same way you map feature flows. Focus on what the user is really trying to accomplish—not just what they click or type. AIX helps systems align with human goals, even when those goals are messy, evolving, or implicit.
- Make Good Friction
Not all friction is bad—especially when it supports learning, reflection, or skill development. AIX designs intentional pauses that don’t just speed up tasks, but strengthen understanding. Like an AI that helps a student learn the concept—not just hand over the answer.
- Trust is earned in micro-Moments
Trust is built in the small, consistent moments where AI behaves reliably, ethically, responds with emotional intelligence, and respects the user’s intent. These micro-moments matter as much as major decisions—because they shape how safe, seen, and understood people feel. And at the heart of it all is ethics—not as a nice-to-have, but as a core design principle that guides not just what AI can do, but what it chooses to do.
- Human skills still matter
AI should augment, not replace. The best AI experiences still depend on distinctly human strengths—storytelling, emotional intelligence, and meaningful feedback from real communities. Smart systems must adapt to people in the moment, shifting tone, pace, and complexity to meet users where they are, not where a persona says they should be.
- Systems are creative and critical partners
Intelligent systems shouldn’t just deliver output—they should think alongside users. Like a well-designed cockpit or car seat, great AI adapts to individual needs: language, context, prior knowledge, even emotional state. When systems become creative and critical partners, they empower people to think bigger, move faster, and trust more deeply.
- Emotion is a first-class metric
How users feel after an AI interaction isn’t just a soft signal—it’s a powerful predictor of trust, loyalty, and long-term value. Emotion should be tracked, designed for, and prioritized alongside accuracy and efficiency. If you’re not measuring how it feels, you’re not measuring the full experience.
What to do next
Start by asking these in your next sprint planning or roadmap review:
- What kind of relationship does our AI create today?
- Where are we accidentally breaking trust or confusing intent?
- What recovery paths do we offer when AI fails?
- How are we measuring emotional resonance?
- Who owns the AI experience in our company?
- Do our AI touchpoints feel consistent across products and teams?
- Are we using AI to enhance relationships, or just automate tasks?
Better yet: conduct a Relationship Audit of your AI features. What do the tone, timing, feedback loops, and error handling really communicate?
Final word: Relationships are sticky
AI is the most powerful design material we’ve ever had. But it’s also the most unpredictable. And in a world of hallucinations, voice interfaces, and generative output, the experience of AI is just as critical as its function.
Your customers don’t just want AI that’s smart. They want AI that’s respectful, helpful, and humanistic enough to feel real.
Welcome to AIX.
For more information about AI Experience Design (AIX) you can visit: https://jakemckee.com/aix
You can also signup to join AIX Sessions. These intimate, invite-only (and free) virtual conversations for senior leaders explore how to design smarter, more human-centered relationships between humans and intelligent systems…and the business and social implications.
About Jake McKee
Jake McKee, Community Driven Product Development and Consultant
Jake McKee is one of the founders of the modern customer community movement. He led Apple’s famed Global Support Communities and pioneered efforts at LEGO to engage its adult users in a community, which spawned breakthrough innovations such as the Mindstorms Community Driven Product Development (featured on the cover of Wired Magazine). For more than 10 years, Jake has been a leading industry community consultant working with clients like Cancer Treatment Centers of America, Calix, Southwest Airlines, and Outdoorsy. His consulting practice, Jake McKee Consulting, focuses on helping organizations of all sizes design, execute, and grow Community Driven Product Development programs that bring the Community Voice into the product development lifecycle. Jake also manages the CX 5essions project, an invitation-only monthly dinner series that brings senior online community, CX, and product management leaders together for conversation, connection, and camaraderie. And just for fun, he created a web comic for community managers called Confessions of a Community Manager.