AI can make every team faster. It can't make every brand distinctive. That part is still on us.
Last week in New York, Domaine hosted its second annual Domaine Curated, bringing clients and commerce leaders together to dig into what's shaping the industry right now. One session went straight at the question most design teams are quietly wrestling with: if everyone has the same tools, what actually sets a brand apart?
The Human by Design panel was moderated by Katie Baligod, Director of UX at Domaine, and featured Pattern Co-Founder Michael Janiak alongside Amelia Gesser, SVP Ecommerce at rag & bone, and Laura Mann, Sr. Product Manager at Kendo Brands, home to Fenty Beauty, Fenty Skin, Fenty Hair, Fenty Fragrance, OLEHENRIKSEN and Lip Lab.
The premise was simple. AI is changing how experiences are researched, designed, tested and shipped. Speed is the obvious upside. The more interesting question is what you choose to do with it.
Faster isn't the same as better
Most of the AI conversation in ecommerce is about efficiency. Faster research, faster prototypes, faster time to market. All real, all useful. But a faster path to a forgettable experience is still a path to a forgettable experience.
The panel opened by separating the two. Where does AI actually improve the quality of the work, and where does it just compress the timeline? The answer that kept surfacing: the biggest gain isn't doing the same thing quicker. It's being able to explore more possibilities in the same amount of time, and getting a real idea in front of a real customer sooner.
It's also starting to show up in the experience itself, not just the process behind it. Kendo's recent work bringing Google Gemini on-site is an early look at AI shaping how customers shop, not only how teams build.
"Competent eCommerce is getting cheaper and easier to produce. Which means the ceiling — design with a genuine point of view, experiences that earn loyalty rather than just transactions — is where the real differentiation lives."
Michael Janiak
Executive Creative Director & Co-Founder
Pattern
The sameness problem
Customers have never been more fluent in ecommerce. They know the patterns. The fundamentals of good UX are largely standardized. And now AI makes it easier than ever for any team to ship something polished.
That raises the floor for everyone. It also creates a real tension: when every brand has access to the same tools, the same references and the same best practices, they start to converge on the same answers. Technically sound. Well optimized. Increasingly indistinguishable.
Which means brand expression doesn't matter less in the age of AI. It matters more. Easier execution raises the bar for creative direction and taste, because those are the things that can't be generated from the same shared inputs as everyone else.
Follow the pattern, or break it
AI is exceptionally good at finding patterns: what converts, what customers respond to, what tends to work. That's valuable. But some of the most memorable design decisions come from knowing when not to follow the pattern at all.
The conversation drew a useful line between bad friction and intentional friction. A clunky checkout is bad friction. A moment that slows the customer down to tell a story, show craft or make a product feel considered can be exactly what makes a brand feel like itself. For a fashion brand like rag & bone, where taste and storytelling carry so much of the experience, that distinction matters.
The practical takeaway: use conventions where customers need clarity, and differentiate deliberately where the brand needs to show up. Relentless optimization without that judgment can quietly optimize the personality right out of a brand.
"When it comes to UX, there is bad friction and then there is intentional friction. Intentional friction can be a useful part of the brand experience."
Michael Janiak
Executive Creative Director & Co-Founder
Pattern
What gets more human, not less
As AI takes on more of the mechanics of design, the designer's role doesn't shrink. It shifts toward the work that depends on deep customer understanding, judgment, creativity and taste.
The harder question is where the time goes. If efficiency just turns into higher output expectations, teams end up making more of the same thing, faster. The better move is to reinvest it: more customer research, more experimentation, more storytelling, more craft. The parts of the job that were always the most valuable and always the first to get squeezed.
That's how we think about it at Pattern. AI is a powerful intelligence layer. The point of view still has to come from the people applying it.
Three years out
The panel closed by looking ahead: what part of the design process will we be amazed we ever did by hand, and what should stay fundamentally human?
As AI makes it easier to move faster and make more, the things that make great design distinctive become more important, not less: understanding your customer, having a strong point of view, and knowing when to follow the pattern and when to break it.
The opportunity isn't to take humans out of the design process. It's to use these tools to make more room for the creativity, judgment and craft only people bring.
Thanks to Katie, Amelia and Laura for a great conversation, and to everyone who joined us in New York.
About Pattern
Pattern (now part of Domaine) helps brands unlock their next catalyst moment through experience-driven eCommerce. We design modern brands, eCommerce experiences, products & platforms that help founders, disruptors and visionaries find their place at the intersection of culture, community & commerce.
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