On September 9, 2025, YUJ Designs celebrated its 16th anniversary – a moment of pride, reflection, and renewed purpose.
Since 2009, YUJ has partnered with Fortune 100 enterprises, startups, and global organizations to transform business outcomes through design. What began as a vision to make design a strategic business lever has grown into a practice that has delivered 4,000+ impactful projects across industries. This journey was championed by our founders, Samir Chabukswar and Prasadd Bartakke, whose leadership has been the driving force behind our growth.
This milestone isn’t just about years completed – it’s about the people and ideas that made it possible. To our teams, whose creativity and dedication have been the heart of every success story. To our clients, who trusted us with their most complex challenges. To our partners and the larger design community, who continue to inspire and collaborate. This journey has been possible because of you.
This anniversary isn’t just about looking back; it’s a launchpad for our next chapter. The world of technology and design is evolving at an unprecedented pace, and as we stand on the cusp of this new era, we are more committed than ever to leading the way. We believe the future isn’t something we wait for – it’s something we design.
A Vision for Tomorrow: Pivoting with Purpose
The market is shifting faster than ever. AI, new technologies, and evolving customer expectations are no longer trends – they are the new baseline. Companies that thrive are the ones that adapt, evolve, and pivot with clarity and speed. At YUJ Designs, our need isn’t just to keep up – it’s to stay ahead. What worked yesterday won’t guarantee tomorrow’s success. We see the market not as a challenge but as a canvas for innovation, where AI stands on one side, consulting in the middle, and the design community on the other.
That’s why we’re excited to announce our pivot into three revolutionary segments, designed to help our clients and the broader design community thrive in the age of AI.
- Consulting with AI (yuj.ai)
- AI Agents
- Skill Labs
Consulting + yuj.ai
Our foundation has always been deep expertise, problem-solving, and a trusted partnership. This core remains the same. For years, our consulting approach has been rooted in a deep understanding of human behavior, using time-tested methodologies like in-depth user research, persona creation, user journey mapping, and usability testing. These practices – the very DNA of our work – have allowed us to deliver meaningful, human-centered experiences that drive business outcomes.
With yuj.ai, we’re taking this to the next level by empowering our designers to be AI-Native. This means not just using AI tools for efficiency but rethinking experiences from the ground up. It’s an opportunity to design with a new mindset, creating responsible, ethical, and unbiased AI systems while keeping a human in the loop. We are integrating advanced AI processes to deliver faster timelines and more nuanced outcomes, ensuring our clients receive truly disruptive strategies. Our point of view is the differentiator: how we break through the noise, disrupt markets, and unlock unprecedented growth.
We’re expanding our portfolio with a suite of new services tailored for today’s landscape. From AI-powered CX and UX research to strategic design and product strategy consulting, we’re equipped to help you navigate the future.
AI Agents: Building Intelligence with Design Mind
Agents are no longer futuristic—they are everywhere. But technology alone doesn’t differentiate. The edge is in design: how the agent thinks, how it acts, and how it makes decisions with the humans. That’s where we play. We are building the next generation of AI agents, focusing on creating intuitive, human-centred experiences that go beyond technology.
This segment is powered by Design Mind, an agentic AI proprietary platform by YUJ Designs. Here are a few examples of how we envision these agents revolutionizing industries:
- For logistics companies: A design-led AI agent can go beyond simply re-routing shipments. It can proactively communicate with customers, anticipate potential delays, and even negotiate with carriers to secure better rates, all on its own.
- For e-commerce platforms: An AI agent can act as a personal shopper, understanding a user’s style and preferences to recommend outfits, leading to higher conversion rates and customer satisfaction.
- For healthcare providers: An agent can help patients manage their wellness routines by providing personalized, compassionate guidance, improving adherence and health outcomes.
Skill Labs: Nurturing the Future of Design
AI is poised to take over much of the traditional design work. So, what skills remain critical, and which ones grow in importance? The next era needs designers who think, talk, and walk AI. Unfortunately, 45% of organizations don’t even conduct basic design activities, often viewing designers as artists, not strategic thinkers. YUJ Designs Skill Labs is built to change this.
Our new Skill Labs initiative is our commitment to training the UX designers of tomorrow. It’s composed of three specialized segments:
- yuj.DNA (Core Program for Design Excellence and AI): This program teaches designers how to think strategically and equips them with the skills to lead, not follow, the AI-driven future. We want designers to stand up and speak in boardrooms, driving business strategy.
- Designing Agentic Experiences: AI has accelerated everything, and we need thinkers and design influencers to keep the world human. This program trains designers to create thoughtful, human-centric AI experiences that keep us from “hallucinating” in this new world.
- Executive Design Leadership Program: Only 9% of companies have UX leaders in the C-suite, and while 81% of executives value UX, only 39% can measure its ROI. This program equips leaders to drive ROI and embed design into strategy, proving the tangible value of design at the highest levels.
Looking Ahead
The AI era is levelling the playing field, presenting an immense opportunity for all companies – big and small. The future is bright, and the possibilities are endless. We are thrilled to be at the forefront of this transformation, ready to shape what comes next. We are excited to continue this journey with you.
Happy Anniversary to the YUJ Designs family and to all our partners who have made this journey so special. Here’s to another 16 years of designing the future, together.
“The future isn’t something we wait for – it’s something we design.”
