Jenny Wen on why AI is replacing the classic design process

Mar 1, 2026 · ai · Source ↗

Published 2026-03-01 - Runtime about 77 min - Watch on YouTube

TLDR

Jenny Wen says the classic discovery-mock-iterate process is mostly dead because engineers can now spin up working prototypes faster.
Design is splitting into execution support and short-horizon vision, with AI tools shifting designers toward code, polish, and direction-setting.

Key Takeaways

At Anthropic, Jenny Wen says mockups fell from 60-70% of her time to 30-40%, while engineering support and implementation took a larger share.
She says Claude Code and Claude Co-work changed design by making 3-6 month prototypes more useful than 2-10 year vision decks.
Figma still matters because Claude-based tools are linear; she uses it to explore 8-10 directions and micro-variants like typography and style.
Jenny Wen says the best designs now come from real model behavior, not clickable mocks, because non-deterministic AI reveals use cases only through use.
She describes Anthropic as a “fully Claude” house, using Claude chat, Claude Co-work, Claude Code in VS Code, mobile, and Slack.

Notes

Jenny Wen now leads design for Claude Co-work at Anthropic after previously directing design at Figma, where she led FigJam and Slides.
She says the old design process of research, divergence, convergence, and polished decks no longer matches how AI products get built.
In her view, engineers are often still better at implementing scrappy versions, so designers should let teams build and then help shape the result.
The new design split is execution support plus direction-setting; she thinks both are necessary when teams can generate features quickly in many directions.
Jenny says the future vision window is now often 3-6 months, not 2, 5, or 10 years, because model capabilities change too quickly.
She uses Claude Co-work for longer-running tasks and has shifted most of her Claude chat use cases into Co-work.
Her IDE setup relies on Claude Code in VS Code for frontend work, plus more remote use through mobile and Slack for quick edits and PR follow-through.
Anthropic still uses user research, surveys, prototyping, and mockups, but the mix has changed; she now spends more time jamming with engineers and implementing polish.
She says designers should look for interesting, illegible ideas inside the company and act like internal VCs by noticing where energy is building.
A prototype called Cloud Studio helped surface ideas that later influenced the skills framework and the information layout in Claude Co-work.
Her hiring lens centers on three archetypes, especially strong generalists and deep specialists, plus people excited about frontier technology.
Jenny recommends The Power Broker, Insomniac City, and the film A Sentimental Value; her favorite product outside Claude is Retro, which turns weekly photos into a living timeline.