AI is expanding UX beyond human users to agents acting on their behalf. Experience design names this broader field, which still centers on people’s goals.

Summary: AI is expanding UX beyond human users to agents acting on their behalf. Experience design names this broader field, which still centers on people’s goals. I am not one for new terms. When NN/G changed its job titles from “user-experience specialist” to “experience specialist”, I was skeptical. The article we published to explain the change did not convince me either: yet another name for the same thing. I now think the new title was right, but for a reason we did not think of at the time. Our field is no longer only about people directly using products and services. It also includes agents that act on their behalf. UX is not disappearing. But AI is expanding the field in several directions at once. UX Has Always Been More than UI Don Norman helped popularize the term "user experience " in the 1990s because "usability" and "user interface" were too narrow. He wanted a name for everything a person experiences with a product, from the packaging to the support call. The term widened the object of design beyond just the digital product, to physical products and services. Yet, the idea of a broader object of design did not really hit home until the 2010s, when modern smartphones