#118 Designing for AI Agents: UX Patterns, Ethics & Tools

Future of UX | Your Design, Tech and User Experience Podcast | AI Design

In this episode, we're diving into one of the biggest shifts happening in digital product design right now: AI agents.

AI agents are no longer just answering questions – they’re planning, making decisions, and acting on behalf of users. This fundamentally changes how we design experiences.

You’ll learn:

• What AI agents actually are (and how they differ from chatbots)

• How they’re transforming UX and product workflows

• Core design principles for working with agents

• Ethical concerns we need to consider

• And a personal example of how I used ChatGPT’s Agent Mode to book a hotel in Copenhagen

Plus, I’ll share tools and frameworks to help you start designing for agent-based experiences.

🔑 Key Takeaways

• AI agents are autonomous systems that can observe, plan, and act without being explicitly told what to do.

• UX for agents requires new patterns: transparency, consistency, user control, and trust-building.

• ChatGPT’s new Agent Mode is a clear example of proactive AI that collaborates with users instead of just responding to them.

• Tools like Figma (with branching logic), Lookback, and explainability dashboards help prototype and test agent behavior.

• New interaction patterns are emerging, such as “suggest and confirm” or “mixed-initiative interaction.”

• Ethical design is essential: we need to actively design against manipulation, bias, overtrust, and privacy violations.

🛠️ Resources & Links

AI UX Guidelines

• Microsoft Guidelines for Human-AI Interaction

• Salesforce Trust and AI Ethics Framework

Agent Tools & Prototyping

• SuperAGI (Open-Source Agent Framework)

• Google Dialogflow

• Botmock – Design conversational flows

• Figma Prototyping & Branching

User Testing Tools

• Lookback

• Maze

• UserTesting

Explainability & Oversight

• SHAP & LIME – Explainable ML tools

• Salesforce Audit Trails for Responsible AI

ChatGPT Agent Mode & Connectors

• OpenAI: Introducing GPTs & Agent Mode

• Using Connectors in ChatGPT

  ✨ Enjoyed the episode?
  Share it with a friend or team, post it on LinkedIn or Instagram, and don’t forget to leave a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
  I’d love to hear your feedback! Find us on Instagram @ux.patricia & @futureofux_podcast or on LinkedIn Patricia Reiners & Future of UX