---
title: "Intercom on Product: How to design standout products in an AI world - The Intercom Blog"
description: "Intercom’s VP of Design Emmet Connolly and Staff Product Designer Molly Mahar discuss how product designers must adapt their methods for AI, drawing from their experiences building Intercom’s products. They explain that designing for AI means moving from deterministic to probabilistic systems, where unpredictability is the norm and designers must design flexibly around surprises. Data quality is foundational for reliable AI, so designers should prioritize it; realistic prototyping using actual data helps capture essential user feedback and evaluate output effectiveness. Extensive testing is necessary to anticipate possible system failures; if live versions catch designers off guard, testing must be more robust. Building user trust requires consistent positive experiences and transparency about how the system works and its data, enabling designers to create AI experiences that make users feel comfortable and confident."
---

# Intercom on Product: How to design standout products in an AI world - The Intercom Blog

[Intercom](https://yomu.fyi/company/intercom) · Oct 5, 2026

**Type:** Explainer

## Summary

Intercom’s VP of Design Emmet Connolly and Staff Product Designer Molly Mahar discuss how product designers must adapt their methods for AI, drawing from their experiences building Intercom’s products. They explain that designing for AI means moving from deterministic to probabilistic systems, where unpredictability is the norm and designers must design flexibly around surprises. Data quality is foundational for reliable AI, so designers should prioritize it; realistic prototyping using actual data helps capture essential user feedback and evaluate output effectiveness. Extensive testing is necessary to anticipate possible system failures; if live versions catch designers off guard, testing must be more robust. Building user trust requires consistent positive experiences and transparency about how the system works and its data, enabling designers to create AI experiences that make users feel comfortable and confident.

## Context

Discussion between Intercom’s VP of Design and Staff Product Designer on adapting design processes for AI products, based on a recent article and their own experiences at Intercom.

## Approach / What changed

Designers should embrace unpredictability by moving from deterministic to probabilistic design thinking, prioritize data quality as the foundation of reliable AI, use realistic prototypes with actual data to capture genuine user feedback, test extensively to anticipate all possible system failures, and build user trust through transparency and consistent positive experiences.

## Takeaways

- AI product design requires embracing unpredictability rather than seeking deterministic outcomes, as probabilistic systems offer surprises that must be designed around flexibly.
- Poor data quality undermines AI reliability; designers should prioritize high-quality data to ensure effective and user-satisfying product performance.
- Realistic prototyping using actual data is essential for capturing genuine user feedback on AI output effectiveness, far more than using polished visual designs with fake data.

## FAQ

### How should designers handle AI's unpredictability?

Designers should view surprises as expected and design flexible, robust strategies around them, moving from deterministic control to probabilistic adaptability.

### Why is data quality important in AI product design?

Because AI systems are only as reliable as their training data; poor data leads to unreliable outputs and poor user experiences, so designers must prioritize data quality.

### What is the best way to test AI designs?

Use realistic prototypes with actual data to gather genuine user feedback. Anticipate all possible system failures and ensure testing is robust enough to reveal them before launch.

**Tags:** [AI](https://yomu.fyi/topic/ai), [Data Quality](https://yomu.fyi/topic/data-quality), [Product Design](https://yomu.fyi/topic/product-design), [Prototyping](https://yomu.fyi/topic/prototyping)

- Source: [Intercom](https://www.intercom.com/blog/videos/intercom-on-product-designing-product-with-ai)
- Source URL: https://www.intercom.com/blog/videos/intercom-on-product-designing-product-with-ai
- Ingested by Yomu: 2026-10-05T18:00:58.312Z

[Read original post](https://www.intercom.com/blog/videos/intercom-on-product-designing-product-with-ai)