Agentic Ateliers 2027 / Kickoff Session
Ownership and Quality When Anyone Can Build Anything
Ever felt like you’re supposed to have an AI strategy while still figuring out what’s actually working? Or watched someone generate a screen in seconds and wondered who now owns the thinking behind it? You’re not alone. In this honest and interactive kickoff, Brian Lin opens up the questions design leaders are often expected to answer, but rarely get space to discuss.
You’ll compare notes with peers, debate where responsibility sits across design, product and engineering, and start defining what good looks like when anyone can make something that looks finished.
Expect candid conversation, practical examples and a few uncomfortable questions—all aimed at making ownership clearer and setting a quality bar your team can stand behind.
Who is it for?
Designers, managers and leaders aiming to set the standards on how to work inside their teams in this AI era.
Top 3 Outcomes
- #1Locate your organisation on the AI maturity spectrum and compare notes with peers on the uncertainties you face
- #2Map ownership across design, product and engineering to identify overlapping responsibilities and gaps
- #3Develop principles that speak to quality and ownership before using them to draft a charter you can take back to align with your cross-functional teams
Facilitating this session:
Brian Lin
Sr. Product Design Manager · Discord
Brian Lin is a design leader based in Toronto who has spent more than twenty years helping teams create things people genuinely want to use. He’s currently at Discord, where he leads a team of designers focused on the parts of the product people use most, like chat and voice, and integrates AI in ways that help people connect without getting in the way.
Before Discord, Brian spent four years as a Design Director at HelloFresh, leading design for the company’s growth efforts. He helped shape how his teams worked with AI day-to-day, turning early experiments into shared practices for prototyping and testing ideas cross-functionally. He also helped teams determine what “good enough to ship” should mean while ensuring speed never came at the cost of quality or clear ownership.
Brian has worked at large companies, small agencies, and fast-growing startups. Across them, he’s learned that good work depends on people understanding what they’re responsible for. In recent years, he’s been exploring the same questions about AI, ownership, and quality that many design leaders face today.