Designing Beyond Screens: The Future of Design in an Agentic World

October 1, 2025

•

5 mins read

•

Our screens are bursting with life. They are rich, visual, and meticulously designed to capture our attention. We navigate complex menus, tap through carousels, and fill out forms—each click a conscious step in a journey. But what if the best interface was no interface at all? What if the experience was so seamless, so intuitive, that the screen itself simply faded into the background?

To be clear, this isn't a call to eliminate design. It’s a call to elevate it. We are entering the era of Invisible UI, an era in which design is not seen but felt.

We partner with, and design for brands that are always seeking more meaningful connections with their customers, the ability to deliver these effortless experiences is becoming a strategic imperative. The goal is to move beyond simple transactions and cultivate a new kind of relationship.

As Andre Bisinella, Director of UX at IM Digital, explains, the future is about creating a dynamic, conversational partnership.

"The goal is for users to interact with a chat approach interface that will answer questions and give them recommendations based on what the site has," says Bisinella. "Instead of searching through a catalog and going from page to page to find what they need, they will ask and talk to an agent that will give information and perform actions without any friction. This elevates the brand from being a vendor to a trusted and proactive partner."

Unseen Obstacles: Where Traditional UI Falls Short

Before we can build the future, we must understand the limitations of the present. While beautiful and functional, traditional user interfaces often create unintended friction—subtle barriers that accumulate, leading to frustration and abandonment. These "unseen obstacles" are common challenges that businesses face in delivering a truly superior customer experience.

Cognitive Load: The mental energy required to learn a new layout, compare dozens of options, or decipher complex navigation paths.
Contextual Blindness: Interfaces that feel static, failing to adapt to a user's location, time of day, past behavior, or immediate intent.
Feature Overload: The paradox of choice, where an abundance of features and options overwhelms users rather than empowering them.
Passive Interaction: The reliance on users to actively initiate every search, click, and command, placing the entire burden of progress on them.

These friction points are more than minor annoyances; they represent moments of disconnection. Andre Bisinella identifies these as key areas where agentic systems can make an immediate impact.

"Decision fatigue is a major issue," he notes. "It's always a task to go in and find the product when we have so many alternatives to compare. Other friction points include repetitive interactions, like filling forms or re-entering payment information, and information overload. Most of the time, sites show far more than we need, or they romanticize in a way that just makes it hard to get the answers we are looking for. Invisible UI will surface things we need, provide the most relevant information, and automate these repetitive tasks."

Orchestrating Intuition: The Engine Behind Invisible Experiences

The magic that allows interfaces to "disappear" is agentic intelligence. Think of AI-powered "agents" as autonomous digital assistants that can understand intent, perform multi-step tasks, learn from behavior, and anticipate needs on the user's behalf. This marks a fundamental shift from user-initiated actions to system-initiated, user-validated interactions.

Several key technologies form the engine of this AI-powered commerce revolution:

Predictive Analytics: Foreseeing user intent based on historical data and real-time signals.
Contextual Awareness: Tapping into location, device, time, and personal data to provide hyper-relevant assistance.
Natural Language Processing (NLP): Making voice and text the primary, most intuitive modes of interaction.
Reinforcement Learning & Multimodality: As Bisinella points out, systems that use machine learning to improve over time and understand inputs beyond just text—like images or gestures—are critical enablers.

This doesn't make designers obsolete; it transforms their role. The focus moves from crafting pixels to architecting intelligent systems. Bisinella describes this evolution powerfully: "The role shifts from creating mockups to being an 'experience choreographer.' We will be defining the core principles, boundaries, and moments of intervention."

Core Tenets for a Post-UI World

So, how do we design for disappearance? It requires embracing a new set of principles where anticipation and context replace explicit clicks and commands. This is the new playbook for UX design in an agentic world.

Anticipate and Predict: The system should deliver the right information or action before the user even has to ask. Think of a travel app suggesting you check in for your flight or a retail site preparing your usual order.
Prioritize Context Over Content: As Bisinella suggests, we must "design for flow instead of steps." The experience should adapt dynamically to the user's situation, moving away from rigid pages and forms.
Default to Delights: Use intelligence to pre-fill forms, suggest the most likely option, and automate routine tasks, turning potential chores into moments of seamless satisfaction.
Provide Feedback and Assurance: An invisible system shouldn't be a black box. Subtle cues—a soft chime, a brief notification, or a simple checkmark—confirm that the agent is working effectively without being intrusive.
Design for Trust: In a world of autonomous systems, trust is the ultimate currency. Bisinella emphasizes that ethical AI is non-negotiable, highlighting the need for "transparency, data privacy, and [mitigating] bias." Brands must be clear about what their agents can do and build systems that respect user privacy above all else.

Return on Experience: Why Invisible UI Drives Tangible Value

When we talk about adopting an Invisible UI strategy, it’s not just about creating "better UX"—it's a fundamental driver of business growth and a source of sustainable competitive advantage. When interactions become effortless, the return on experience manifests in tangible, measurable outcomes.

The strategic advantages are compelling. Bisinella identifies the core benefits as "customer intimacy and loyalty, competitive differentiation, and increased conversions."

By removing friction, brands can expect to see:

Enhanced Customer Loyalty: Effortless experiences build deep brand affinity and turn customers into advocates.
Increased Conversion Rates: A streamlined path from discovery to purchase directly impacts the bottom line. As Bisinella confirms, this directly boosts "conversion rates" and "customer retention."
Greater Operational Efficiency: Automating routine inquiries and personalizing recommendations at scale frees up human teams for more complex, high-value work.
Unlocking New Data Insights: Moving beyond clicks gives businesses a richer understanding of true user intent and behavior.

Engineering Tomorrow's Commerce: The Unseen Revolution

Invisible UI is not a distant fantasy. The technology is here, and consumer expectations for frictionless, intelligent experiences are rising daily. The shift from transactional interactions to deep, ongoing relationships is the single most exciting implication for the next decade of commerce.

"We are moving from transactional interactions to a relationship," Bisinella concludes. "The agents will truly serve as helpful partners along with the brand, enriching our journey without demanding too much attention."

For a glimpse of this in action, one only needs to look at emerging demos like the one for codename goose, which showcases how an agent can fluidly handle product search and the entire checkout process.

Navigating this digital transformation requires more than just technical implementation; it demands a strategic partner who understands how to merge complex AI capabilities with elegant, commercially viable, and human-centric design. As Bisinella notes, "this is a business evolution, not just a technical project."

At IM Digital, we partner with DTC and B2B brands to build everything from internal capabilities to the strategic roadmaps, new experiences, features, and solutions they need to thrive in this new world.

Ready to make your customer experience unforgettable by making it invisible? Let's talk.

Andre Bisinella, Director of UX at IM Digital, is a strategist focused on designing the future of frictionless commerce. He is passionate about using agentic AI to create intuitive and intelligent experiences that build lasting brand loyalty.