The last interface, sycophancy in AI, design is how it wins
Weekly curated resources for designers — thinkers and makers.
“At the end of February, a report by Citrini Research caused major shockwaves through the software industry, sending the stock prices of heavyweight SaaS organisations like Atlassian and Slack to nosedive. The Citrini Report follows AI’s current trajectory and projects that 2028 will bring a self-inflicted corporate doom loop: AI makes software so cheap to build that SaaS companies will cannibalise themselves out of business.”
The last interface →
By Heenesh Patel
Call for Entries: UX Design Awards — Autumn 2026 →
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Editor picks
- Leading design teams is easy, but we made it complicated →
Presence, impact, and issues in tech companies.
By Kike Peña - Sycophancy: the emperor’s new clothes →
Why AI’s real danger isn’t hallucination — it’s agreement.
By peng lin Ang - What we’re outsourcing without noticing →
The hidden cost of AI design tools.
By Andy Bhattacharyya
The UX Collective is an independent design publication that elevates unheard design voices and helps designers think more critically about their work.
Grainrad: Free WebGPU-powered ASCII, dithering, and retro effects at 60fps →
Make me think
- Designing AI experiences people actually use →
“For decades in SAAS, products reduced ambiguity. Users supplied constrained inputs, and the system handled the output. It’s never been Minority Report cinematic, but it was predictable. AI-first interfaces invert that sequence.” - Do AI-enabled companies need fewer people? →
“So something real is happening: startups are genuinely smaller than they used to be, even as they’re raising bigger seed and series A rounds. They’re also hiring more slowly as they grow, and in some cases they’re shrinking.” - I don’t know if my job will still exist in ten years →
“In 2026, I’m not sure the software engineering industry will survive another decade. If it does, I’m certain it’s going to change far more than it did in the last two decades. Maybe I’ll figure out a way to carve out a lucrative niche supervising AI agents, or maybe I’ll have to leave the industry entirely. Either way, the work I loved is going away.”
Little gems this week
The color statistic that’s been wrong for 80 years →
By Kevin Muldoon
What happened to the car designed for women, by women? →
By Daley Wilhelm
Design is not just how it works. Design is how it wins. →
By Elaine
Tools and resources
- Accessibility testing takes more than a scan →
What automated tools can’t catch.
By Allie Paschal - Things that don’t matter when you write →
Extensive experience and “new” ideas are among them.
By Rita Kind-Envy - Building digital products people want to live in →
Good UX decisions can still add up to bad experiences.
By Dalia Katan
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The last interface, sycophancy in AI, design is how it wins was originally published in UX Collective on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
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