Product Development

UX Institute Podcast: Why 85% of AI Projects Fail - And Why Most Teams Are Still Getting AI Wrong

UXI Podcast with Mark Swaine (45 minutes)

"Eight weeks ago I felt like the world was passing me by."

4 Essential UX Skills for 2026 — #3/4 Agentic Workflow Design

4 Essential UX Skills for 2026 — #3/4 RAG Refactoring. Why Most People Fail at Agentic Workflow Design. 3 Problem Framing Exercises We Teach in UX for AI Professional Certification. Free Live Workshop TOMORROW Friday, May 29, 12 PM PT. From the authors of UX for AI (Wiley 2025, Amazon #1 New Release).

Kids & Matches, Agents & Judges, and the Simplest SOC Agent Safety Layer Nobody Built (Yet)

Your judge model doesn't need to be smarter than your agent. It can be a stubborn 5-year-old that tells your agent, "Mom said no matches!"Agentic Judge-in-the-Loop (JITL): why and how to build one. The real conversation.

UX for AI Certification — Founder Cohort

The job market for designers has split. A small group is leading AI product strategy. Everyone else is competing for the same shrinking pool of traditional UX work.

CES 2026: Boring AI Is Winning, Fast Money Is Circling, and Most Leaders Aren't Ready

I walked 14 miles of the show floor at CES 2026. Gave a talk on advanced prompting. Talked to VCs, founders, consultants, AI leaders. 5 patterns emerged. All of them point in the same direction. Most companies are walking the other way.

How to know when the wheels are coming off your AI project?

You can't demo a real system on real data in 2 weeks.

My one AI prediction for 2026

Substance wins. Hype dies.

The rebrand (and an opportunity)

After 16 years and 34 AI products, I'm shifting focus. Why? Because 85% of AI products fail—and I got tired of watching it happen and did something about it. New newsletter. New mission. And a way for you to help (that also makes you look good).

When Engineers Say 'It's Beyond Your Understanding,' Here's What They Actually Mean

One engineering leader said this to me on a project 9 months behind schedule. After 34 AI projects, I knew what it actually meant: the problem wasn't the engineers—it was a broken requirements process no one had caught yet.

The timely question that saved $2M

One cybersecurity company was weeks away from building an AI system that would have confidently produced nonsense. One key question in a 3-day workshop rewrote a $2 million roadmap — turning a failed AI strategy into genuine competitive advantage.

Thin Slicing: Why Your AI Product Strategy Needs Less Theater, More Taste

Are you optimizing for the picture? Or for taste? Here's why 85% of AI projects fail and how to build one that actually works.