Applied AI for Design Research
5 Weeks
·Cohort-based Course
Turn AI from a threat into a strategic advantage — master AI-supported research methods and defend your value and role leading the process.
This course is popular
5 people enrolled last week.
Applied AI for Design Research
5 Weeks
·Cohort-based Course
Turn AI from a threat into a strategic advantage — master AI-supported research methods and defend your value and role leading the process.
This course is popular
5 people enrolled last week.
Course overview
Go from AI dabbler to confident design leader
You’ll move from uncertainty about how AI fits into design research → to a confident, tested process you can apply immediately in real projects. By the end, you’ll know exactly what to delegate to AI, what to lead yourself, and how to communicate that balance to clients, stakeholders, and peers.
Using Anthropic’s 4D framework (Delegation, Description, Discernment, Diligence), you’ll work through an end-to-end research and strategy project with weekly coaching and hands-on practice across multiple AI tools.
You’ll leave with a practical toolkit you can use on day one — prompts, methods, checklists, and a Designer Value Statement — that proves your ability to use AI with rigor, ethics, and creativity.
Who is this course for
01
UX researchers, strategists, and designers who feel pressure to use AI but aren’t sure how to responsibly incorporate AI into their methods.
02
Leaders who want to define an AI-supported design process their teams can follow consistently.
03
Anyone in research or design who worries about being replaced by AI and wants to advocate for the role of design in AI-driven organizations.
What you’ll get out of this course
Develop your AI-supported design process
Learn how to map the 4D Framework (Delegation, Description, Discernment, Diligence) onto a real design research project. You’ll practice deciding what to delegate to AI, what you’ll lead yourself, and how to structure an AI-supported workflow that is transparent and defensible.
Apply AI-supported methods
Work with real research data to practice methods including structured prompting, qual data synthesis, concept generation and advanced insight development. You’ll compare outputs from multiple AI tools, refine them with your judgment, and build a library of prompts and methods.
Judge AI quality and accuracy
Use validation techniques like cross-checking against raw data, triangulating across AI tools, and training AI to defend and support its own work. You’ll create your own Assessment Toolkit of methods to ensure product, process and performance quality from AI.
Demonstrate AI diligence and transparency
You will draft a Diligence Statement that discloses your use of AI, the verification steps you took, and who owns the final outputs. You'll also develop your own Diligence Checklist to ensure privacy, accuracy, and ethics — and practice explaining this process to stakeholders.
Develop your personal AI Playbook.
Experiment across Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, Dovetail, Figma Make and other tools to see how each performs at different research tasks. You’ll leave with a personal playbook that documents strengths, weaknesses, and “best-fit” tools and methods for your own work.
What’s included
Live sessions
Learn directly from Ann Conway in a real-time, interactive format.
Lifetime access
Go back to course content and recordings whenever you need to.
Community of peers
Stay accountable and share insights with like-minded professionals.
Certificate of completion
Share your new skills with your employer or on LinkedIn.
Weekly office hours
Ask the instructor questions, get advice, and share your work and insights with your peers.
Applied AI Resource Library
The Methods Playbook (24 step by step AI-supported design research + strategy methods), prompt tear sheets, and your Personal AI Toolkit.
Maven Guarantee
This course is backed by the Maven Guarantee. Students are eligible for a full refund up until the halfway point of the course.
Course syllabus
5 live sessions • 8 lessons • 12 projects
Week 1
Week 2
Week 3
Week 4
What other designers and researchers say
Sara F.
Malini R.
Lili N.
Anwer A.
Meet your instructor
Ann Conway
Ann Conway
Ann is a thought leader in CX and the evolving role of design in the age of AI.
I’m Ann Conway, founder of Amplify, a customer experience design consultancy that helps complex organizations translate deep research into strategy and growth. Over the past decade, I’ve led design research and innovation work with Fortune 500 brands — specializing in designing for customer loyalty and drive behaviors in the shopping journey.
In the past year, we've thoughtfully integrated AI into every step in our design process — from accelerating research ops to deepening our insights to improving our strategic storytelling.
The result has been incredible: put simply, we can produce more and better work. And more importantly, we haven't lost our role leading the process, our human judgment, or our professional rigor.
What motivated me to teach this course is what I heard again and again in interviews: designers and researchers are facing pressure to use AI, but want to do so thoughtfully and define how they will lead this new process.
This course is about giving you the skills, methods, and language to not only use AI effectively, but to advocate for your place at the table — with rigor, ethics, and creativity intact.
Career highlights
2018 - now: Founder and CEO, Amplify (amplify.design)
AI Thought Leadership:
- Designing Alongside AI, 2025
- Four Real World Rules for Using AI in Design Research, 2025
- The Impact of AI on CX, 2024
CX Thought Leadership
- Using Behavioral Data to Drive Repeat Revenue, 2025
- Keeping Loyal Customers Engaged, 2025
- Design for Emotional Loyalty
Professor, Institute of Design: "Designing Data-Driven Services", 2018-2019
Join an upcoming cohort
Applied AI for Design Research
October 2025
$950
Dates
Payment Deadline
Don't miss out! Enrollment closes in 3 days
Course schedule
4-6 hours per week
Tuesdays: Live instructor demo
3:00 - 4:00 pm CST
The instructor will talk through the week's content and show a live demo of how to complete activities.
Thursdays: Office hours
5:00 - 6:00 pm CST
Stop in to ask questions, get advice, and share your work with your peers.
Weekly projects
2 - 4 hours per week
Every week we will complete one step of a design process (research prep, synthesis, ideation, etc). This will include reviewing instructor content and completing activities using AI tools.
AI Fluency Course
1 hour
This course is based on Anthropic's free online course, "AI Fluency for Students." You will have to complete this course before our cohort begins.
The course has 30 minutes total of videos and is easy to absorb, but it's important to complete before week 1.
Articulate your role in the age of AI
Designers, researchers and strategists know their work matters — but struggle to articulate that value as AI changes the industry.
This exercise guides you to create a Designer Value Statement: a short, powerful message you can use to show stakeholders how you will integrate AI thoughtfully, and where you have unique value and should lead the process.
The result is a clear, confident way to defend your seat at the table — and reframe AI as an amplifier, not a threat.
This lesson and more are a part of "Applied AI for Design Research" - starting 10/13.
Create your value statement
Frequently Asked Questions
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Join an upcoming cohort
Applied AI for Design Research
October 2025
$950
Dates
Payment Deadline
Don't miss out! Enrollment closes in 3 days