This project is situated at the emergent intersection of design methodology and the integration of artificial intelligence in design practice. Increasing algorithmic mediation brings challenges to fundamental understandings of designer’s capacity and responsibility to make value-laden decisions. Despite autonomy’s prominence in responsible AI frameworks, definitions remain abstract and inconsistently applied to design practice, risking fragmented interpretations as human and machine agents negotiate framing authority. Framing is selected as the critical focus of this inquiry because it constitutes the primary, value-laden act where designers define problems, set priorities, and ultimately shape which futures are made possible. Existing models of collaborative reflective practice lack explicit consideration of non-human actors in the sense-making process, and its impact on the human actor’s role and responsibilities. To address this gap, the project aims to develop an understanding of Designer Autonomy that will explicate its meaning, components, and vulnerabilities for design framing practice in an AI-augmented future. Adopting a Value Sensitive Design approach, the project uses the tripartite investigations to define and understand the value of autonomy of designers in collaborative design activities performed with AI.

The conceptual investigation explicates designer autonomy into two interdependent dimensions of authenticity (unmanipulated acting on one’s own beliefs) and agency (independent enactment of those beliefs) in the context of responsible design practice. The value is situated in framing practice in design, claiming that effects of exercising of autonomy, and the potential of shaping of its perception occurs in this process of collaborative sense-making. This informs the empirical investigation, which undertakes an autoethnography as the methodology to understand the designer’s negotiation of agency and perception of influence of authentic beliefs in AI mediated problem framing activity. This resulted in four factors key drivers of co-framing: controlling the pace of activity, having a sense of role and responsibility, relevant digital literacy about the AI tool, and an explicit moral and political lens. The technical investigation reveals three interconnected characteristics of AI: bias, trust, and explainability, and how these can influence the human actor during collaborative framing processes. While AI systems may not be autonomous actors in their own right, their capability and integration into processes means they exert valid influence over the designer’s autonomy, therefore shaping the design decisions.

The key novel results of this project are a descriptive account of autonomy of a designer, its two interdependent dimensions, and the specific risks to each from AI in practical scenarios. A novel conceptual model called Collaborative Framing (Co-framing) practice develops on design theory research on collaborative reflective practice, to describe it as the primary site for ethical‐epistemic engagement between human and non-human (AI) actor collaboration in abductive design processes. This leads to discussions of application of the outcome to prescriptive design methods, connecting designer to user autonomy, extending the co framing model across design stages and domains, and embedding ethical reasoning directly into AI mediated workflows.