Org challenges and UX of AI

You ship the org chart.

More precisely, the shape and composition of AI teams directs what Product ships.

Given the relative newness and importance of AI, the organisational challenges in the UX of AI are key to shipping better AI Product.

Outside of the major tech companies in particular, I’ve observed three situations that are pervasive and strongly impacting what gets shipped.

A large knowledge and cultural gap between UXers and MLers. UX designers are unlikely to have a strong ML background and ML practitioners are unlikely to be expert at UX. 

The concept of AI products are likely to come with organisational biases (positive or negative). 

AI products are often not independent within the org. Org boundaries impact what can and will be shipped and how much of the UX we can control.