AI Product Designer and User Experience Expert

Nailing the details on your AI product, so you can GTM with confidence.

I am partnering with founders, product leads and engineers to craft an evidence-based product experience, so you can impress and close your most promising prospects.

AI & ML since 2020·Works at C-level·VC-backed startups & government
Iga Kowalczuk — portrait
BCG X
Boston Consulting Group
Aleph Alpha
European AI lab
Manifold
AI security · Cherry Ventures
Mercura markMercura
Y Combinator
Senticor
Public-sector AI
Raiqon
for BMW, VW, Schaeffler

Selected work

Three engagements · 2026
Manifold Overview after the redesign: dark navigation panel, posture cards and review actions
Manifold · Enterprise AI security · Cherry Ventures-backed

How I helped turn Manifold from a pile of features into a product that explains itself

An AI-security startup had lost a deal over UX, and every demo began with an explanation. In four weeks, working inside the core team with the Chief Architect and the frontend lead, we reorganised the product around its three user roles: one end-to-end flow per role, a structure that follows the flows, and a surface where red means Critical and nothing else. After Black Hat USA, the CTO put it simply: "Now we're differentiated in the first five minutes."

1 interface → 3 personas
Each security role got its own end-to-end journey
5 min from pitch to close
Improved first impression at Black Hat Conference and flattened learning curve for first users
0 handoff friction
Every design change shipped as a reviewed PR directly into the GitHub Repo
Read the full case study →
Public-Sector AI

Teaching an AI app generator to design like a product team

A government-tech startup generates complete applications for the public sector — but the generated interfaces had no design intelligence behind them. I designed its first two production apps, then encoded my design methodology into the generator itself: research, user flows, component logic, and accessibility as built-in standards. As a result, work scoped as a 200-hour engagement was delivered in fifteen. The generator now produces consistent user-centered, accessible applications by default that do not look like a random Lovable build.

200 → 15 hrs
scoped vs. delivered
6 mo → 2 wks
vs. classical vendor benchmark
Read case study →
Enterprise B2B · Product-team startup with BMW traction

From database mirror to product: redesigning the flows behind a complex technical tool

A technical product already in production had been built as a mirror of its database — no user flows, no UX thinking — so every new prospect needed two hours of onboarding just to understand it. Working directly with the product manager, I audited the interaction, harvested the real user goals, and prototyped the redesigned flows in code. The team implements my interaction design with their own components. The redesign cuts the two-hour onboarding, unlocking faster sales cycles and higher adoption — with early traction at a major automotive OEM.

2 h → 15 min
onboarding per prospect
3 OEMs
automotive manufacturers on the platform
Read case study →
How We Work Together

Three ways

I don't sell hours — I change how your team builds products. Every engagement is scoped around a decision your team needs to make, and ends with your people working differently, not depending on me.

01

Design Strategy Day Start here

One focused day with your founding team. We audit the product, frame the real problem, and leave with a decided direction — evidence on the table, trade-offs explicit.

  • Product & UX audit before we meet
  • Facilitated decision session with the founding team
  • The real problem, framed and agreed
  • Trade-offs explicit — with my recommendation
  • Written direction + prioritized next slices, within 48 h
1 day · remote or Berlin
02

Two-Week Design Sprint

A fixed-scope strategy phase: assess your flows and information architecture, converge the team on a direction, and prove it with one worked example built in your real pipeline.

  • Stakeholder + user-side discovery interviews
  • Audit of flows and information architecture
  • IA & user-flow plan the team owns
  • One flow redesigned and prototyped in your real pipeline
  • Design-system foundations: tokens, defaults, components
  • Handoff: decision log + what to build next
2 weeks · fixed scope
03

Embedded Design Partner

One to two months inside your team, working in your repo: prototyping in code, standing up the design system, installing the AI-first process — and sparring with the founders at C-level.

  • Design leadership at the decision table — C-level sparring
  • Prototyping in code, in your repo: PRs, not Figma files
  • Design system + Storybook as the single source of truth
  • The AI-first process installed: divergence → convergence
  • Team enablement, so the process outlives the engagement
  • Visible increments weekly — cadence over polish
1–2 months · embedded

What others say

Startup founders, BCG partners, Aleph Alpha managers & colleagues, AI engineers
One of those rare designers who can navigate the complexities of AI without losing sight of the human at the center. She takes messy, complex requirements and translates them into clear, user-centric concepts the whole team can get behind.
Johann Dornbach
Johann Dornbach
Startup Founder · 24+ yrs enterprise software · managed Iga
She could sit down with a room full of stakeholders, really listen, and walk out of the first meeting with a prototype that got everyone aligned. Our customer noticed — they kept coming back to her for her perspective.
Annika Kilian
Annika Kilian
AI Solutions for Industry · automotive project
Iga knows the ins and outs of user-led design. She brings a fresh and strategic perspective that unravels latent needs — she really boosted the product discovery phase.
Aico Troeman
Aico Troeman
Managing Director & Senior Partner, BCG
An outstanding UX leader with exceptionally high standards and a very clear point of view — the confidence and assertiveness to advocate for the right user experience, even in complex and demanding environments.
Theresa Rickmann
Theresa Rickmann
Sovereign AI · public-sector program
Her determination to truly connect with people, understand challenges thoroughly, and reliably deliver great outcomes, even under pressure. I recommend her especially for projects that require more than standard execution.
Iana Kouris, PhD
Iana Kouris, PhD
Managing Director, BCG X · managed Iga
She runs value discovery workshops that cut through the noise, followed quickly by intuitive prototypes that rally the team. If you need AI products that are practical, ethical, and user-friendly, Iga is the one.
Maximilian Schneider
Maximilian Schneider
Head of AI Solution Engineering
Prime pick designer. Invaluable for early-stage ventures and enterprise products demanding complex technological insight — shipping top-tier work at incredible speed.
Paul Olyslager
Paul Olyslager
Product Manager & UX · ex-BCG · managed Iga
Iga is not a designer who stays in her lane — and that is exactly why she is so effective. She pushed the entire team to think bigger and work more efficiently.
Mathias Landhäußer
Mathias Landhäußer
AI & NLP Expert, Aleph Alpha
Iga brings clarity to ambiguous problems. A designer who makes complex things feel simple and puts users first.
Alex Sheldrick
Alex Sheldrick
Lead AI Engineer, Aleph Alpha
One of those rare designers who can navigate the complexities of AI without losing sight of the human at the center. She takes messy, complex requirements and translates them into clear, user-centric concepts the whole team can get behind.
Johann Dornbach
Johann Dornbach
Startup Founder · 24+ yrs enterprise software · managed Iga
She could sit down with a room full of stakeholders, really listen, and walk out of the first meeting with a prototype that got everyone aligned. Our customer noticed — they kept coming back to her for her perspective.
Annika Kilian
Annika Kilian
AI Solutions for Industry · automotive project
Iga knows the ins and outs of user-led design. She brings a fresh and strategic perspective that unravels latent needs — she really boosted the product discovery phase.
Aico Troeman
Aico Troeman
Managing Director & Senior Partner, BCG
An outstanding UX leader with exceptionally high standards and a very clear point of view — the confidence and assertiveness to advocate for the right user experience, even in complex and demanding environments.
Theresa Rickmann
Theresa Rickmann
Sovereign AI · public-sector program
Her determination to truly connect with people, understand challenges thoroughly, and reliably deliver great outcomes, even under pressure. I recommend her especially for projects that require more than standard execution.
Iana Kouris, PhD
Iana Kouris, PhD
Managing Director, BCG X · managed Iga
She runs value discovery workshops that cut through the noise, followed quickly by intuitive prototypes that rally the team. If you need AI products that are practical, ethical, and user-friendly, Iga is the one.
Maximilian Schneider
Maximilian Schneider
Head of AI Solution Engineering
Prime pick designer. Invaluable for early-stage ventures and enterprise products demanding complex technological insight — shipping top-tier work at incredible speed.
Paul Olyslager
Paul Olyslager
Product Manager & UX · ex-BCG · managed Iga
Iga is not a designer who stays in her lane — and that is exactly why she is so effective. She pushed the entire team to think bigger and work more efficiently.
Mathias Landhäußer
Mathias Landhäußer
AI & NLP Expert, Aleph Alpha
Iga brings clarity to ambiguous problems. A designer who makes complex things feel simple and puts users first.
Alex Sheldrick
Alex Sheldrick
Lead AI Engineer, Aleph Alpha

Before we talk

Common questions

Small teams building B2B AI products in demanding domains, such as AI security, automotive and industrial engineering, public administration, legal and compliance software. Most have between five and fifty people, strong engineering, and no designer yet, or one who is stretched thin. I also work as the forward-deployed designer for AI studios and platform providers that build custom products for Mittelstand and public-sector clients.

Usually at the moment customers start judging the product by its interface. A large customer reports that features are hard to find, every demo needs an hour of explanation, or a deal goes to a competitor whose product is easier to understand. In my experience this often follows a funding round or a first enterprise pilot, when engineering ships faster with AI and design becomes the bottleneck.

I use whichever helps the team decide faster. For most product questions I prototype in code, inside your repository, so people review a working flow instead of a static screen. At Manifold, every design change shipped as a reviewed pull request. Your engineers keep ownership of the production code; the prototype settles the decision before they build.

Yes, on the product side. I design the places where regulation becomes visible to users, for example the disclosure that someone is working with an AI system, or the review step where a person confirms what the AI proposed. Accessibility follows WCAG 2.1 AA, and BITV 2.0 for public-sector software. For a client that builds software for public administration, we built these standards into the generator that creates their applications, so every new app starts accessible by default. Legal assessment stays with your counsel.

I work freelance. If you plan to hire a permanent designer later, I can set up the design process and system first and support the hiring, so the new person starts on solid ground.

I am based in Berlin and work remotely with teams in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Poland. In Berlin I also come on site when a workshop needs everyone in one room. Projects run in English or German; Polish is my native language.

Send a few lines to contact@igakowalczuk.com about your product and what your customers say about its interface. From there we find the right format. Many teams start with the Design Strategy Day, because it ends with a written direction within 48 hours.