Episode 073 Deep Dive: Design System AI Automation with Ben Callahan and Davy Fung

Episode 073 Deep Dive: Design System AI Automation with Ben Callahan and Davy Fung

Host Ben Callahan is joined by co-host Davy Fung, a product designer on the Atlassian Design System (previously Meta) and host of the Design System Office Hours podcast, to explore AI as automation in design systems—what could be automated, what should be automated, where practitioners draw the line, and what "craft" still means in 2026.

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 surprising gap between "could" and "should," the risk of using AI to automate broken processes without questioning them first, the tension between deterministic tasks and those requiring human judgment, and how community remains the best antidote to feeling overwhelmed by an ever-accelerating tooling landscape.

Show Notes
00:00 - Introduction and welcome
00:29 - Guest background: Davy Fung on design systems at Atlassian and Meta
01:27 - Design System Office Hours podcast approaching episode 100
01:56 - Topic framing: AI as automation in design systems
02:22 - Survey overview: the four questions asked
03:14 - Survey stats: 1,077 sent, 101 responses
03:44 - Framing quote from Greg: craft-driven practitioners as guardrail-keepers
04:37 - Q1 & Q2 findings: could vs. should be automated
04:59 - Davy's reaction: Zero Height report showed 60% not using token automation
05:28 - Ben's take: design systems are ripe for automation by definition
09:46 - Low-level manual work as craft: some practitioners prefer curation over automation
10:17 - Community opens up: automation as habit vs. automation as know-how
13:00 - The "could vs. should" gap: more caution than capability suggests
17:00 - Davy's workflow: starting ~60–70% of work with AI or automation support
23:34 - Bill's 0%/0% answer: automation exposes flawed processes AI won't question
25:27 - Key insight: automating a hard process can mask that the process itself is wrong
26:33 - Stephen's framework: black-and-white tasks vs. tasks needing intelligent reasoning
28:01 - Practical example: using AI to write consumer-friendly token changelog messages
29:57 - Connection to Episode 072: extreme support and openness to direct conversation
30:12 - Lauren: AI used to train teams on new tools, preserving human knowledge transfer
33:00 - Q3: areas to avoid AI automation — relationships, decision-making, creative direction
36:15 - The "CEO said something" problem: top-down AI mandates without practical grounding
36:43 - Skills vs. MCP: a lively side thread from the community
38:00 - Craft in 2026: intentionality, systems thinking, and human judgment
43:00 - The V0/AI coding tool support burden falling unexpectedly on design system teams
45:02 - Community as the antidote to feeling overwhelmed by tooling change
45:31 - Doug's question: how to expose design documentation to AI via MCP
46:29 - Davy's answer: Atlassian's JSON-structured content powering their ADS MCP
47:28 - Closing reflections; encouragement to dig into Q4 raw answers on craft
47:55 - Community updates: Redwoods writing accountability group, Guy's "Cost of Yes" article
48:51 - Upcoming events: Zeroheight Converge in Newcastle (October), UX London (June, code: JOIN_BC for 20% off)
49:25 - Outro

Where to Find the Hosts
Ben Callahan is Founder of Sparkbox (https://sparkbox.com) and Redwoods Design System Community (https://bencallahan.com/redwoods). Read his writings, have him present at your event, or engage with him as a coach or consultant at https://bencallahan.com

Davy Fung is a Product Designer on the Atlassian Design System and host of the Design System Office Hours podcast (https://bit.ly/3AQYjjI). Connect with him on LinkedIn (https://bit.ly/3XrcF2W).

Get the Raw Data
Access the complete survey data from Episode 073 to conduct your own analysis: https://bit.ly/4cIjAv8

Review the FigJam Notes
Dig into the collaborative notes we took as a community during the deep dive: https://bit.ly/4tW5ZHA

Join the Conversation
The Question explores design systems topics through community research and deep-dive discussions. Participate in future episodes and contribute to the next survey: https://bit.ly/answerTheQuestion