Jon Friedman, Corporate Vice President of Design and Research, Microsoft 365

We recently spoke with ID alum Jon Friedman (MDes 2003), Corporate VP of Design and Research at Microsoft 365, about his 21-year journey at Microsoft, from accidentally landing his first interview to becoming the company’s highest-level design executive. Jon discussed how design earned its strategic seat at the table, his passion for making technology adapt to people, and how AI is accelerating design capabilities.  

Over the past two decades, Jon has played a key role in shaping Microsoft’s design transformation, creating and reimagining products that reach millions of users worldwide. Recently tapped as editor-in-chief of Microsoft 365 Copilot, he leads design and research efforts that are redefining how people create, communicate, and collaborate.  His design insights have been featured in Fast Company, The Wall Street Journal, and The Verge.

This is a condensed version of our conversation—read the full interview.

You’ve been at Microsoft for 21 years. That’s really not heard of anymore. How did that happen?

It was completely accidental. I interviewed with Whirlpool and thought it went terribly—I was taking my tie off, upset, when someone said, “Hey, Microsoft is here and they want to interview.” I called my fiancé and said, “Microsoft wants to interview me. Should I put my tie back on?” She said, “You’re never going to work for Microsoft, but it’s good experience.”

That 15-minute conversation turned into 45 minutes, they flew me out, and I met this interesting incubation team. The people were super fascinating and interesting.

How did you go from picking UI colors to becoming the highest-level design executive Microsoft has ever had?

It took many years of building trust, partnering well, bringing the right talent in, never giving up, always learning. Design kept showing up saying, “No, we’re strategic partners. We’re product people. We care about the business and the technology as much as we care about the experience.”

Recently I was tapped as editor-in-chief of Microsoft 365 Copilot. That’s huge for design to take such a large product leadership role. We went from “what color purple should the UI be” to “we need you to work with business development, marketing, all these engineering teams. Take point. The design team has the lead now.”

There’s this view that design finally has that seat at the table. How do you feel about that?

One of the things designers have to get over is this metaphorical table. It’s funny because at some point you wake up and realize you actually have influence. If you think you don’t, you behave in really weird ways. Victim mentality is a funny thing.

I would find designers not talking to each other, drawing different things, then complaining about engineering making the product different. It’s like, well, you didn’t give them a shared design. You thought you were a victim of a system that you’re actually creating.

The other day, I found designers putting a grid view button next to the list view button in every screen. I asked, “Do we need a grid view?” They said, “No, but this thing has it, so we figured it’d be nice.” I’m like, “Do you know how much engineering work you just created by putting four squares next to three lines in this UI?”

What drives your design philosophy?

I had a brother who had a brainstem tumor when he was eight. He passed away when he was nine. I was fourteen. I did my thesis project at a children’s hospital in the pediatric and neonatal ICUs.

You go into an intensive care unit, and there are parents, nurses, doctors, and children—all subject to the same communication devices, flows, processes, beeping sounds. I’ve always felt like communication needs to be adapted. All the devices and the entire system need to be adapted to every person. A kid needs to feel like they understand what’s happening to them.

I’ve always been passionate about how products and technology can adapt to humanity, versus people needing to adapt themselves to the products we build. This is why I’m very excited about AI—it does a fantastic job adapting information. The holy grail for design has always been: how do you design products to adapt to humanity, to each individual?

What advice do you have for designers today?

Just use AI, experiment with it, understand it in ways that enhance the human-centered design process. I had a senior designer who built an entire agent-builder flow using Lovable Dev in an afternoon—complete with micro-interactions, connected to real data and language models. You want to be that person.

You no longer have to think “I can draw things, but I can’t code things.” That’s not true anymore. You now have a developer friend that can help you for $20 a month. I think you show up as what I’ve been calling a 10x-er—humans augmented with AI that can really have 10x the impact.

How do you personally use AI?

I was given GPT-4 before ChatGPT existed, so I’m two years into expert usage. I can’t say I’ve 10x-ed myself, but I’ve probably 5x-ed myself.

I built a startup in the last two years while growing in my career and leading more than ever, while coaching my daughter’s basketball team, tutoring my kids, and publishing a book with my son. I might’ve gone overboard—I did have to scale back after crying on my office floor from overwork. But it’s exhilarating.

How much will design play a role in AI’s future?

Design thinking is evergreen, but I think we’re entering a phase where we might actually teach AI design thinking to help us reach even higher levels of design thinking ourselves. It wouldn’t be hard to teach a deep reasoning model how to run a design thinking process.

The place where people worry about AI is when humanity loses agency. In my mind, design thinking is the way to good instead—it’s the continuous challenge of keeping humans deeply informed so we don’t make bad decisions.

Full interview available on Medium.

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