Start with a moment in the customer’s life.
Do customers always want more features?
Standing in front of a broken appliance, they may want something else. To know what went wrong. To know when they can use it again. To avoid repeating the same explanation to several people.
A company that promises a product people can rely on for years needs to design for that moment, too.
This note applies the book’s concept of design to the use of AI. AI design strategy concerns choices about the value and experience a company intends to offer—and the direction and relationships among products, services, teams and communication that make them possible. AI can contribute to exploring and comparing those choices.
What should change for the customer?
Consider a company that sells repairable household appliances. This is a hypothetical example.
The company says its products are built to last. Yet when one breaks, customers cannot easily find out whether it can be repaired or how long parts will take to arrive. Support is courteous. The uncertainty remains.
The first decision is what customers should be able to experience after a breakdown. One possible aim: let people understand the scope of repair support before purchase, then see their available options and an expected timeline when something goes wrong.
That aim requires choices. Promising an immediate fix for every failure may be impossible. The company needs to decide which products it will support, where that support ends and how it will explain a timeline it cannot yet confirm. Good intentions become a defined experience the company can actually provide.
The promise changes how products and services connect.
Brand strategy is the core directional layer that defines the value promised to particular customers. Design establishes the direction and relationships needed to make that value part of their experience. This is how the book connects the two concepts.[1][2]
A promise of dependable, long-term use raises the following design questions. The table applies the book’s concepts to the hypothetical situation.
| Relationship to design | Decision to make | Trade-off to examine |
|---|---|---|
| Product and repair | How far should the product support replacing parts during its useful life? | Size, appearance and manufacturing cost versus ease of disassembly and replacement |
| Sales and support | How will customers learn the scope and exceptions before purchase? | A simple purchase process versus sufficient understanding |
| Parts and service | Which parts can be supplied, for how long and in which regions? | Inventory burden versus customer waiting time |
| Support and actual schedules | Which operating facts support the advice customers receive? | Speed of response versus accuracy of confirmed information |
| End of support and next options | What alternatives will be offered when support is no longer possible? | Company cost, customer burden and the value promised |
If making a product smaller makes it harder to repair, the company needs criteria for deciding whether to accept that trade-off. Declaring that every advantage matters does not make a design strategy concrete.
Which choices can AI help examine?
AI can help classify recurring problems in customer inquiries, propose service alternatives and identify risks to investigate for each option. It can also help specify the information needed to compare replacement-led support with repair-led support.
But costs and timelines in an AI-generated comparison require independent checks. Specialists and reliable records need to establish actual parts availability, technical constraints and customers’ conditions of use. Simulated customer reactions must not be treated as findings from real research.
The book allows AI a role in shaping direction. It does not adopt a rigid division in which AI only executes and people alone do strategy. The authority to turn a proposed option into a company promise—and accountability for the result—remain with the company. (Korean edition, pp. 46–47; English edition, p. 73)
Expression communicates the experience being designed.
Once the intended value of a product and service is defined, artwork gives that direction a form customers can see and feel. Information hierarchy and visual expression that help people understand repair support also require professional judgment.
Visual expression cannot provide a repair experience without a repairable product, available parts and connected services. The reverse matters as well: even when operations are ready, customers may not recognize the value if its expression does not help them understand it.
The book distinguishes design from artwork not to diminish either field’s expertise, but to clarify what is being designed and what is being expressed—and connect the two roles. (Korean edition, pp. 43–44; English edition, pp. 69–71)
Check whether the experience changes.
A limited trial of repair support can reveal changes in the customer experience. Did people understand the scope of support before buying? Did they learn what they could do after a breakdown? How far did actual service differ from the timeline they were given?
Costs and operating demands belong in the same review. An improved experience that the company cannot sustain calls for another design decision. Nor does an improvement in one measure establish that AI or design strategy alone caused it.
At the next meeting, ask:
“Because of the value we chose to offer, which moment in the customer’s life should change?”
Being able to describe that moment makes it possible to discuss specific product changes, service connections and costs the company will need to bear.
The question behind the book
Chapter 4 of No More Marketing Teams describes design in terms of purpose, direction and relationships, and distinguishes the roles of brand strategy, Brand Design Management and artwork. This note uses those distinctions to examine the choices and trade-offs involved in designing a customer experience.
Sources and scope
1. Seoung Wi Choi, AI 시대, 마케팅팀은 사라진다, final revised Korean BOOKK print interior supplied by the author, Chapter 4, pp. 43–47. Checked against the PDF on September 26, 2026. 2. Seoung Wi Choi, No More Marketing Teams, 178-page English hardcover KDP interior supplied by the author, Chapter 4, pp. 68–74. Checked against the PDF on September 26, 2026.
The distinction between design and artwork is the author’s practical terminology, not a claim to a universal academic or industry standard. The account of AI design strategy, repair-support scenario, table and review questions extend the book’s ideas. They are proposals, not company cases from the book or demonstrated performance results.