AI is everywhere in the design conversation right now. Executives are asking about it, vendors are promising it, and teams are experimenting with it, often without a clear framework for making it work at enterprise scale.
At Switch, we’ve seen first-hand that AI applied without structure creates more problems than it solves. More inconsistency, more rework, more brand drift. That’s why, Recursion, our proprietary accelerator, includes a robust design system that standardises how design is produced. Recursion provides a governed, AI-ready foundation from day one, so that when AI is introduced into the design process, it accelerates the right things, consistently and at scale.
The default framing tends to focus on standalone generative tools such as Midjourney, Figma AI and ChatGPT, used by individual designers to produce assets faster. Whilst this is a good first step, it misses the larger opportunity entirely.
The real value of AI in design isn’t what it can generate in isolation. It’s what it can accelerate when embedded inside a well-governed design system. Without that system, AI outputs are inconsistent, ungoverned, and expensive to maintain at scale.
AI doesn’t create design consistency. A design system does. AI amplifies whatever foundation you’ve already built."
Before AI tooling for design can add meaningful value to a digital project, the design infrastructure beneath it has to be solid. That means a governed component library, defined design tokens, clear naming conventions, and a scalable architecture that multiple teams can build on simultaneously.
Recursion is configured in Figma using industry best practices, including Components, Variants, Slots and Variables, giving organisations a structured, scalable system to work from on day one. It’s not a starting point that needs months of setup. It’s an accelerator that compresses the foundational work, so teams can focus on delivering great digital experiences, faster.
Once in place, Recursion extends naturally into the content and personalisation layer through digital experience platforms, creating end-to-end consistency from design through to delivery.
Switch uses Recursion in three ways to deliver real AI-enabled value for enterprise organisations.
Using Recursion’s governed component library, we’re able to generate layout and content variations through AI within predefined design system constraints. This maintains brand integrity whilst dramatically reducing the time and effort of producing campaign or page variants. Without those boundaries in place, AI-generated variations are a liability. With Recursion, they’re a delivery advantage.
Real-world example
An enterprise customer of ours needed 5 regional homepage variants for a product launch. Using Recursion we were able generate compliant variations through AI, delivering the full set of assets in a fraction of the time a traditional design process would require. Plus they were all fully brand compliant.
Recursion provides the foundation to build AI-enabled personalisation that holds together at scale. Rather than designing separate journeys for every audience segment, Recursion’s component architecture configures contextually relevant experiences, ensuring every variant remains visually and functionally consistent, no matter how many are in play.
Real-world example
For our automotive customer, we delivered distinct landing page experiences for fleet buyers and private buyers, built on a single Recursion design system with AI-driven content logic determining what each audience sees. This allows relevance at scale without accumulating new design debt.
Recursion acts as the single source of truth against which all design output is measured. Switch uses AI tooling to scan components, layouts and content against Recursion’s design system parameters, flagging deviations before they reach production. For our enterprise customers with multiple contributing teams or agency partners, this governance layer is essential, not optional.
Real-world example
For one of our global enterprise customers with regional marketing teams across multiple markets, Switch implemented AI-assisted QA within Recursion, automatically cross-referencing submitted campaign assets against the design system and catching off-brand colours, incorrect type sizes and unapproved components before sign-off.
There’s a common belief that AI reduces the need for experienced design and technology partners. In reality, it’s the opposite.
It is the expertise, strategic thinking and delivery experience of the Switch team that determines how effectively AI is applied. The quality of a design system, the rigour of its governance model, and the judgement applied to AI outputs are entirely dependent on the people behind them.
Without people who know what they’re doing and who have actually worked in complex, enterprise environments, AI tooling produces noise, not value. Recursion is only as powerful as the team configuring, governing and evolving it, and that’s what Switch brings to every engagement.
AI is a genuine accelerator for enterprise design but only when it’s built on the right foundation.
Without structure, it amplifies inconsistency. With the right system in place, it amplifies capability.
If you want to see how a governed design system can instantly make your AI efforts harder-working and more consistent, let’s chat.