{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"The Question: Design System Collaborative Learning","title":"Episode 073 Recap: Design System AI Automation with Ben Callahan and Davy Fung","html":"<iframe width=\"100%\" height=\"180\" frameborder=\"no\" scrolling=\"no\" seamless src=\"https://share.transistor.fm/e/cf6f0ca5\"></iframe>","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":1563,"description":"Episode 073 Recap: Design System AI Automation with Ben Callahan and Davy FungHost Ben Callahan and co-host Davy Fung, a product designer on the Atlassian Design System and host of the Design System Office Hours podcast, sit down immediately following the Episode 073 deep dive to reflect on what they heard from the community. The survey was sent to 1,077 design system practitioners and received 101 responses across four questions: what percentage of your workflow could be automated with AI today; what percentage should be automated; in what areas should we avoid AI automation and why; and what does craft mean to you in a 2026 design systems context. The conversation covers the gap between \"could\" and \"should,\" the fear of loss embedded in resistance to automation, how process maturity should gate automation decisions, Bill's insight that automating broken processes masks their flaws, and the community's rich catalog of ways AI is already being put to practical, targeted use in design system workflows.Show Notes00:00 - Introduction and episode overview00:14 - Topic recap: AI as automation in design systems, four questions asked01:51 - Davy's starting point: Zero Height report showing 63% not using design system automation02:48 - Top-down AI mandates vs. practical decisions about what to automate03:18 - What's missing from the conversation: automation's impact on human connection rituals03:40 - The \"could vs. should\" gap: respondents who decreased their answer between Q1 and Q204:00 - What the decreasers said: loss of organizational context, institutional memory, and learning05:01 - Davy's pushback: documented knowledge scales better than single points of contact05:58 - The language of \"loss\" as sensitivity to losing control, not losing value06:16 - Ben's process maturity model: automate after you've learned the lessons manually07:11 - The risk of skipping straight to AI before understanding the work07:45 - Davy: scalability vs. the trap of being the sole expert in...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/8ZoZhDyVederAFF-YGuNFdyaUvqzao3a6rYS6VFp3F4/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS9kMjQ2/MjJjYzdiYmY4MWU0/NGQzMjJmOGUyNzlj/YmMwZS5wbmc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}