All of us are fighting a war on three fronts (thanks to AI). Customer product expectations are higher than ever. Distribution channels are collapsing. And everyone – big incumbents, new startups, even your own customers with vibecoding – are coming for your value prop.
UX faced instability from layoffs, hiring freezes, and AI hype; now, the field is stabilizing, but differentiation and business impact are vital.
Summary: Accelerating AI capabilities will shift focus from raw intelligence to autonomous agents and Generative UI, making UX the primary business moat. Multimodal integration and physical AI will revolutionize workflows, rendering static interfaces and single-purpose tools obsolete. However, progress faces hurdles like compute shortages and a widening class divide between premium and free-tier users.
I am generally curious about the concept of legibility of work. Look around in your workplace. You can find documents, messages, presentations, design files. Evidence of people’s work. While it may look like a lot, there is a whole other type of work that is very hard to see. The invisible work.
Look, I know why you’re here. You’re tired of “Top 10” lists written by bots that haven’t written a line of code since 2020. You want to know if Cursor is actually better than VS Code, if Devin is worth the massive price tag, or if you can get away with using Claude Code in your terminal.
Amit Sheen takes a hard look at the “Pixel Perfect” legacy concept, explaining why it’s failing us and redefining what “perfection” actually looks like in a multi-device, fluid world.
As AI evolves, the user experience realm presents promising opportunities for exploration. While AI excels at processing data, users often struggle to interpret its outcomes, which can lead to a cycle of simplification.
Software used to feel separate from us. It sat behind the glass, efficient and obedient. Then it fell into our hands. It became a thing we pinched, swiped, and tapped, each gesture rewiring how we think, feel, and connect. For an entire generation, the connection to software has turned the user experience into human experience.
In 2026, the report states, mobile accessibility transcends the issues of accessibility and regulation; it is a matter of making mobile experiences better. The need for mobile accessibility has become a fait accompli due to the current mobile app dominance in how people connect with each other or their surroundings. Mobile apps have revolutionized how we communicate, shop, learn, and live, and this transformation is deeply rooted in mobile app…
You can ship a lot of “smart” UI this year while quietly making it less trustworthy, less coherent, and harder to operate.
