Patterns Podcast

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AI can generate a screen in seconds. Deciding whether that screen is right still takes someone who has seen enough of them. In this episode of Patterns, Chris Strahl talks with design leader Alexis Puchek about what design judgment means when agents do more of the building.

Drawing on about 20 years at frog, Hudl, and Procore, in fields where the screen often isn't the point, Alexis explains why judgment gets more valuable as systems get better. The conversation moves from enterprise design systems to job sites, wearables, and interfaces with no screen at all.

We'll explore:
Why teams using the same components still ship "consistently inconsistent" products, and the layer of patterns and principles that belongs above a design system
Why judgment is built through reps, and why better systems concentrate judgment instead of replacing it
Why metrics in field software can mislead: when people can't quit a tool, endurance looks like adoption
What changes when you don't control the canvas, from heads-up displays to an exoskeleton that only vibrates near its limit
Why content design, information architecture, and service design are moving from polish to the first decision

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Design systems were built to close the gap between a brand and the products that express it. Now an agent sits in that gap, and it arrives at every task like a new hire who has never seen the system. In this episode of Patterns, Chris Strahl talks with Mike Kamminga, CEO and founder of Tokens Studio, about what that changes for tokens, components, and the context teams hand to their agents.

Mike describes a design system as component definitions, design tokens, and translation rules, then explains why agents lean on what they learned in training, like Tailwind, over what a team intends. The conversation covers source of truth, guardrails built for slower release cycles, design.md, and what Mike calls an experience system.

We'll explore:
Why an agent is "the new guy on the job" every time, and what that means for how a design system is documented and delivered
Why models lean on what they saw in training, and what it takes to steer an agent toward something different
Why Mike has yet to hear a good argument for code or design alone being the source of truth, and why a design system is a prescriptive ideal state
Whether guardrails built for slow release cycles still pay off when an agent can fix a mistake in minutes
Why a five-minute style guide is a good start for prototypes, and why Mike calls the next step an experience system

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AI makes it easier than ever to build the wrong thing quickly. Zooming out to see the whole system is one way teams notice. In this episode of Patterns, Chris Strahl talks with James McElroy, a designer and design leader who started in mechanical engineering, about keeping the big picture in view while the tools get faster.

James traces a systems mindset from childhood terminals at home to a first design job at Bose, where a handheld home theater remote with a 128-segment display forced James to be frugal with every segment. From there the conversation moves through Monster.com in the dot-com era, architects at Autodesk, the pendulum problem of AI hype, and how to help colleagues at companies that are not tech native understand what AI can and can't do.

We'll explore:
Why the ability to zoom out and see every screen, flow, or piece of hardware is still one of the most compelling things a designer can show a team
What designing for a 128-segment display taught James about frugal, systems-level design
Why happy paths are largely a myth in complex products, and what the miserable path shows
How to help people at companies that are not tech native understand AI, starting with using it daily until its limits show
Why agreeing on goals matters more than deciding who owns the screen when everyone can make a mockup

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Software teams are operating in an environment where the job description changes every two months. As agentic AI moves from novelty to real engineering capability, the assumptions that have held enterprise software together — long SaaS contracts, stable teams, predictable agile rhythms — are starting to bend. In this episode of Patterns, Chris Strahl talks with engineering leader Alex Wilson about what it actually takes to bring AI into a large, regulated organization, and how the math behind building, buying, and structuring teams is shifting underneath everyone at once.
Drawing on his work leading the design system at T. Rowe Price and driving AI activation across the firm, Alex explains how agentic capabilities are reshaping build-vs-buy, the shape of teams, and how engineering leaders need to show up. The conversation moves from the cultural pressure to be "AI-native" to the practical questions of modular architecture, smaller delivery pods, and why the best leaders are now building alongside their teams.
We'll explore:
Why "build vs. buy" looks different when agents can build and maintain internal tools, and how that's pushing companies to shorten SaaS contracts and treat vendor software as a stop-gap
How teams are shifting from large pods running classic agile toward smaller groups of "big gear" and "small clockwork" builders with compressed spike-to-ship cycles
Why modular, replaceable architecture is becoming a strategic requirement as SaaS feels less permanent and internal builds become more viable
How engineering leaders set the tone by adopting AI tools themselves — treating personal experimentation as a path back into the company's roadmap
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Guest
Alex Wilson is an engineering leader focused on design systems and AI-enabled product development. He leads Beacon, T. Rowe Price’s design system, driving broad adoption across the firm and generating more than $15 million in design and development cost avoidance.
He works at the intersection of design, platform architecture, and AI, where he focuses on improving how digital products are built and evolve at enterprise scale. From this perspective, he explores how intelligent systems can enable more adaptive, context-aware experiences while maintaining consistency and design integrity. He also defines technical strategy around agentic workflows that enable teams to build in new ways.
Beyond his work at T. Rowe Price, he is an active voice in both the engineering and design communities, speaking at industry conferences, mentoring leaders across disciplines, and contributing to conversations on AI-driven product development, design systems, and the future of software delivery.
Host
Chris Strahl is the host of the Patterns podcast and a pioneer in modern digital product design and development. As the co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, he is a leading voice on how AI can fundamentally reshape the way teams design, build, and deliver digital products with a human-centered approach.
Sponsor
Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

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Digital products no longer exist as standalone apps. They live inside complex ecosystems of interfaces, AI systems, legacy infrastructure, and workflows that all have to work together. In this episode of Patterns, Chris Strahl talks with product design leader Andi Rusu about what it takes to design reliable digital experiences in environments where multiple systems—and increasingly AI—are shaping how products behave.
Drawing on experience at Disney, Sonos, Axon, and Microsoft, Andi explains why trust is becoming the central design challenge in modern product development. As AI becomes embedded in digital products, the job of design expands beyond crafting interfaces to shaping how complex systems behave, how decisions are made, and how users understand what’s happening behind the scenes. The conversation explores how designers can balance abstraction and transparency, when friction actually improves the experience, and why human judgment still plays a critical role in building trustworthy AI-powered products.
We’ll explore:
Why modern digital products behave more like ecosystems than individual apps, and how fragmentation across systems creates new design challenges for product teams
How AI is becoming a new layer inside product development, influencing how workflows, decisions, and automation shape the user experience
Why trust becomes harder to maintain in AI-driven products, especially when systems make decisions users cannot see or easily understand
Why human judgment still matters in AI-powered design, and how designers balance abstraction, transparency, and intentional friction to create reliable user experiences
View the transcript of this episode.
Check out our upcoming events.
If you want to get in touch with the show, ask some questions, or tell us what you think, send us a message over on LinkedIn.
Guest
Andi Rusu is a product design and research leader focused on creating user-centered experiences across complex product ecosystems. He has led design teams and initiatives at Disney, Axon, Sonos, Microsoft, and Deloitte, helping organizations deliver impactful digital products at scale. He has also taught experience design at Cornish College of the Arts, the University of Washington, and the School of Visual Concepts.
Hostt
Chris Strahl is the host of the Patterns podcast and a pioneer in modern digital product design and development. As the co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, he is a leading voice on how AI can fundamentally reshape the way teams design, build, and deliver digital products with a human-centered approach
Sponsor
Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.