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28.10.2026 8:4516:30

AI & Design Systems

Level
Beginner
Language
English
Where
Hobo Hotel
Length
7,5 h

AI is here whether we’re ready or not. It’s powerful—and that means it can make a huge mess when it collides with an organization’s standards, constraints, and realities.

Design systems help teams ship consistent, high-quality UI by providing shared language, reusable parts, and guardrails across design and engineering. In this workshop we’ll combine those forces: use AI with design systems to strengthen foundations, improve product work, and responsibly explore what’s next.

The workshop will be led by Brad Frost, one of the world’s leading experts on design systems and the author of Atomic Design. He will also deliver a keynote at Grand One AI Day on October 29. Masterclass participants receive a 15% discount on AI Day tickets (cannot be combined with other discounts).

Workshop is held in Hobo Hotel in Helsinki. Lunch with the teacher and other participants is included.

What you should expect?

  • A taught, practical day: concepts + examples + hands-on exercises
  • Real demos: prompts, workflows, and “how this actually works at a company”
  • Discussion + Q&A throughout (not just at the end)
  • Artifacts you can reuse: checklists, prompts, and a playbook outline

What you’ll learn

  • Cut through the AI hype learn the core concepts for using design systems and AI together
  • Identify the 3 core use cases for AI + design systems
  • Use AI to audit and strengthen design system foundations (tokens, components, docs)
  • Use AI to audit and strengthen design system foundations (tokens, components, docs)
  • Apply a context-based design systems workflow across the entire product lifecycle
  • Learn how to operationalize DS+AI in your organization’s workflow
  • Create a culture of flexibility and adaptability in an ever-changing technology landscape

Timetable

8.45

Doors open

• Settle in, grab breakfast and coffee
• Quick intros around the room

9.00

Welcome + guiding principles

• Why AI + design systems is both exciting and risky
• What we mean by “guardrails” (and what we don’t)
• How the day will work: demo → exercise → discussion

9.25

Core concepts: Design systems x AI (the shared mental model)

• Design systems: benefits, common failure modes, and what “good” looks like
• The “potent combination”: what each supplies that the other lacks

10.10

The 3 core use cases (the map for everything else)

1. Strengthen design system foundations with AI
2. Use DS + AI to make better products
3. Invent what’s next (responsibly)

10.40

BREAK

11.00

Use case 1: Strengthen design system foundations

Part A — Audit & health check: what to look for
• Consistency, coverage, duplication, drift
• Anti-patterns: “AI wallpaper,” hallucinated specs, mismatched tokens

Part B — Practical workflows (DEMO)
• Component inventory + gap analysis
• Token mapping/translation and naming alignment
• Documentation upgrades: writing for humans and machines

Exercise: in pairs or solo
• Run a mini-audit prompt set against a small slice of your system
• Identify 3 “highest leverage” fixes

12.15

LUNCH

13.15

Use case 2: Make better products with DS + AI

Part A — Context-based workflow across the lifecycle
• Research → synthesis → concepting → design → build → test → feedback
• Where context should live (and how it should travel)

Part B — Practical workflows (DEMO)
• Context-aware prompting for design exploration (without breaking the system)
• AI-assisted component assembly in dev workflows
• Testing + review with system constraints

Exercise
• Turn a rough product requirement into a context pack + prompt
• Generate options, then evaluate them against system rules

14.20

BREAK & COFFEE

14.40

Use case 3: What’s next (and how not to hurt yourself)

• Generative UI / agent-driven UI generation: what’s real today
• The adjacent possible: how teams evolve capabilities safely
• Security, privacy, approvals, and the “who can run what” question

Short exercise
• Draft a “safe-to-try” experiment proposal for your org

15.50

Making it stick: rollout + governance

• Maturity-level entry points (where to start based on your reality)
• Governance that doesn’t become a bureaucracy trap
• Continuous re-evaluation cycles (what to measure, what to watch)

16.20

Wrap-up + final Q&A

• Key takeaways
• What to do in the next week
• Where to go deeper

16.30

Workshop ends

Course teacher

Brad Frost

Brad Frost

Brad Frost makes things and helps people. He’s a web designer & developer, speaker, writer, teacher, consultant, musician, artist, and enthusiasm enthusiast located in beautiful Pittsburgh, PA. He is the author of Atomic Design, which introduces a methodology to create and maintain effective design systems. He helps digital designers and developers level up through online courses about design systems, design tokens, frontend development, collaboration, and more. He hosts the Wake Up Excited! podcast where he talks to exuberant people about living a creative and fulfilling life. Not short on projects and passions, Brad’s created projects like the Open Up PodcastCold Album DrummingFrostapaloozaStyle Guides PodcastPattern LabStyleguides.ioThis Is ResponsiveDeath to Bullshit, and more.

LinkedIn Website

“Brad ran a fantastic two-day workshop with our team and struck the perfect balance between design and engineering. His thoughtful and pragmatic approach really resonated with us.”

Chris Saint-Amant
Manager UI Engineering at Netflix

“Brad is a long-time trusted expert in Design Systems, who literally wrote the book on Atomic Design. He’s one of the most knowledgeable people in this space, and this paired with his depth and knowledge of Figma makes him a perfect person to run a deep-dive course on Design Systems.”


Noah Levin
VP of Product Design, Figma

“Brad has been instrumental in advancing the concept of design tokens and design systems. I am constantly referring to Brad’s talks and articles, especially the article about a three-tiered approach to design tokens. Brad and Ian are amazing teachers and writers so I know this course will be amazing.”

Danny Banks
Creator of Style Dictionary, Design Systems Architect at Amazon

“It was definitely worth the investment, and Brad really went above and beyond what we expected from him.”

Mike Aparicio
Groupon

“Brad’s design system workshop helped inform, inspire, and enabled us to create working, tangible deliverables…”

Ben Ramsey
Experience Design Manager, Abercrombie & Fitch

What you’ll take away

  • Hands-on practice with real design challenges (not theory)
  • Proven frameworks you’ll use immediately in your work
  • Miro workspace with templates, exercises, and resources
  • Complete workshop materials as PDFs for reference
  • Practical techniques that fit your existing workflow

What to bring

  • A laptop + your preferred note-taking tool
  • Optional but helpful: Figma, a code editor, and access to your design system docs
  • AI tool access (Claude recommended; other LLMs are fine)

Register

Super Early Bird

Private sector
595 €
Public sector, freelancers
545 €

Early Bird

Private sector
695 €
Public sector, freelancers
645 €

Normal

Private sector
795 €
Public sector, freelancers
745 €

Want to hear more about this course?

Jani Järvinen

Jani Järvinen

Producer

+358 40 533 8877

jani@grandone.fi

545 – 595 €
Register