About the AXD Institute

What is Agentic Experience Design?

Agentic Experience Design (AXD) is the discipline for designing trust-governed relationships between humans and autonomous AI systems. Founded in September 2024 by Tony Wood in Manchester, United Kingdom, AXD addresses how humans delegate, calibrate, observe, interrupt, and recover trust in agentic AI.

How does AXD differ from traditional UX?

Why is trust architecture important for agentic AI?

Key concepts in About the AXD Institute

How do about the axd institute relate to agentic commerce?

  1. Agency requires intentional delegation — every agentic system begins with a designed act of delegation
  2. Trust is the primary material — AXD works in trust rather than attention
  3. Absence is the primary use state — the most consequential experiences happen when no one is watching
  4. Relationships have temporality — agentic experiences accumulate history over time
  5. Outcomes replace outputs — AXD designers specify results, not interfaces
DimensionTraditional UXAgentic Experience Design (AXD)
Primary materialAttention and affordanceTrust and delegation
User statePresent, navigatingAbsent, delegating
Design outputScreens and interfacesOutcomes and constraints
Temporal modelSession-basedRelationship-based
Success metricTask completionTrust calibration

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the AXD Institute?

The AXD Institute is the canonical institutional home of Agentic Experience Design (AXD) - a discipline concerned with how humans delegate, calibrate, observe, interrupt, and recover trust in autonomous AI systems. Founded in September 2024 by Tony Wood in Manchester, UK, it publishes research essays, vocabulary, frameworks, and practice guides for the emerging field of agentic experience design.

Who founded the AXD Institute?

The AXD Institute was founded by Tony Wood, an Emerging Technologies and Innovation Consultant and Agentic AI Product Specialist based in Manchester, United Kingdom. Tony Wood created Agentic Experience Design as a new discipline in September 2024, authored the AXD Manifesto, defined over 60 canonical vocabulary terms, published over 50 research essays, and designed 12 practice frameworks.

Where is the AXD Institute based?

The AXD Institute is based in Manchester, United Kingdom. It was founded in September 2024 and serves a global audience of designers, product leaders, researchers, and organisations working with agentic AI systems.

Is AXD Institute content free to access?

Yes. All research, frameworks, vocabulary, and essays published by the AXD Institute are freely accessible. The Institute operates on the principle that a discipline cannot be established behind a paywall - it must be open, citable, and available to the global community of practitioners and researchers.

How can I work with the AXD Institute?

The AXD Institute offers advisory services including AXD diagnostics, trust architecture design, agentic commerce strategy, and framework implementation. For consulting engagements, visit the Consultant page. For general enquiries, collaboration proposals, or speaking invitations, visit the Contact page.

Key Takeaways

The AXD Institute was founded in September 2024 by The mission of the Institute is threefold: to The Institute operates on the principle that Since its founding, the AXD Institute has published a substantial body of work that constitutes the foundational literature of the discipline: The discipline of Agentic Experience Design is built on five founding principles, each of which represents a fundamental departure from traditional interaction design: All research, frameworks, vocabulary, and essays published by the AXD Institute are freely accessible. The Institute operates on the principle that a discipline cannot be established behind a paywall - it must be open, citable, and available to the global community of practitioners, researchers, and organisations working with agentic AI systems. The Institute is institutionally independent. It is not affiliated with any technology vendor, academic institution, or industry consortium. This independence ensures that the discipline is developed on its own terms, guided by the requirements of the field rather than the commercial interests of any single organisation. The Institute welcomes collaboration with academic researchers, industry practitioners, and organisations seeking to apply AXD principles. For advisory and consulting engagements, see the For enquiries, collaboration proposals, or speaking invitations, please visit the For consulting and advisory services, see

References and Citations

Gartner: Machine Customers Will Be a Multibillion-Dollar Opportunity Harvard Business Review: The Age of AI Agents McKinsey: The State of AI in 2024 About the AXD Institute Contact Us Email the AXD Institute Tony Wood on LinkedIn Tony Wood on X (Twitter)