Why Not Just Ask AI? A Field Guide to Navigating Speed and Rigor in UX Research

"Why not just ask AI?" is becoming a serious question in many product teams, and this is a reality UX teams need to embrace. AI promises faster answers, convenience, and confident recommendations. Add the complexity of large organizations, regulated environments, and uneven UX maturity across teams, and maintaining research rigor becomes a real pain.

We'll share how we're navigating this: making sure UX research enables faster decisions without confusing plausible output with trustworthy insights. Specifically, where is AI really accelerating research? Where can it weaken the decision-making process? Where is the rigor of research methodologies essential to be maintained? And how can research analysis and repository tools like Condens help us move faster while keeping human judgment front and center?

This isn't a universal playbook or a case for one "best" method. It's an invitation to explore a new role for researchers: partners in making trustworthy decisions. Together, we'll map the trade-offs between speed and rigor, risk and trust.

This session is for UX researchers, ResearchOps practitioners and UX leaders introducing AI-assisted ways of working in complex or regulated organizations.