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PRAXIS — A humanistic framework to design AI-driven products, by Manu Abuín

PRAXIS Book Cover

How to design products with intelligence without losing the human kind

Products no longer wait for instructions. They anticipate, decide, filter, act.

And yet, we still design them as if they were screens. PRAXIS is a framework for restoring purpose, boundaries, and humanity to systems that behave.

By Manu Abuín

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Products now behave. They anticipate, decide, filter, and influence — without asking permission. Yet we still design them as if they were mere interfaces. PRAXIS is the first framework to order the behavior of intelligent systems with purpose, ethics, and human agency.

A disorder no one is naming

Artificial intelligence has given products a kind of power that design never had to manage before: the ability to act without being asked.

Systems filter information, anticipate decisions, adjust options, and intervene in processes — often without explicit human oversight.

And the organizations adopting them can rarely explain what they're delegating or why.

There's no shortage of frameworks for designing interfaces. What's missing is a framework for designing behavior: defining what a product can do, what it shouldn't do, and who is accountable when things go wrong.

PRAXIS was born to name that disorder. And to offer a way of thinking — concrete, ethical, and operational — that lets teams design intelligent products without surrendering human judgment.

A page from the book

"There's a difference between a product that fails due to a technical limitation and one that fails because no one stopped to think about what it should do with the power it was being given. The first kind of failure is understandable. The second is an abdication. And that abdication, in products that make decisions about real people, has consequences that can't be measured in conversion metrics."

PRAXIS, Chapter 3

What you'll find inside

The book unfolds like a conversation: it begins by naming the problem, then rebuilds the foundations, defines how a product should behave, presents the complete framework, and ends by asking what kind of organizations are needed to sustain it.

PROLOGUE — The power that disordered design

PART I · THE CURRENT DISORDER

1. The misdirection of "product-first AI"

2. When products started to behave

3. The authority we gave away without noticing

PART II · WHAT WE MUST RELEARN

4. A new concept of purpose

5. What only a human can decide

6. Ethics as system architecture

PART III · HOW A PRODUCT BEHAVES

7. The product's character

8. Who acts first and why

9. The design of errors

PART IV · PRAXIS: THE FRAMEWORK

10. The pillars of PRAXIS

11. The PRAXIS process (step by step)

12. PRAXIS applied to existing products

PART V · THE ORGANIZATIONS OF THE FUTURE

13. Teams that think with AI without losing humanity

14. The culture that enables dignified products

EPILOGUE — What we are not yet capable of anticipating

What you will learn with PRAXIS

  • How to define operational and moral purpose in AI-driven products

  • How to design limits for system autonomy

  • How to design safe errors and responsible behaviors

  • How to give products a clear, intentional "character"

  • How to protect human agency in automated processes

  • How to audit and correct existing AI-driven products

Who is this book for?

For those who make decisions about digital products and feel that something doesn't add up in the current AI conversation. Product managers, designers, founders, strategy and technology leaders.

You don't need to be a technical expert. You need to care about the consequences of what you build.

And if your product doesn't use AI yet — even more so. PRAXIS is especially useful before you plug anything in.

Manu Abuín

About the Author

Manu Abuín has spent over fifteen years designing digital products in sectors where decisions carry real weight: healthcare, finance, energy, education. He has led product teams and guided organizations through AI adoption — not from theory, but from the trenches of building things that affect real people.

PRAXIS was born from that experience: from watching how the speed of technology adoption can outpace the reflective capacity of the teams implementing it.

And from the conviction that design needs a new language for what's coming.

Speaker on AI, product strategy, and ethical innovation.

Frequently Asked Questions

About the book

Is it a book about AI or about product design?

It uses AI as a mirror, but the focus is the product: how it behaves, what power it exercises, and what responsibility we assume when designing it. If the technology changed tomorrow, many of the book's ideas would still hold.

Does PRAXIS compete with Design Thinking, Lean, or other frameworks?

No. It layers on top of those approaches. It doesn't replace discovery or execution processes — it orients them when products start making decisions on their own. It's a layer of judgment above the methodologies you already use.

Can I use it within my company for projects and workshops?

Yes. The book is designed to be worked through as a team. You can build context-specific workshops around it. Check the Resources section for practical tools to get started.

Talks and language

Do you offer talks or training on PRAXIS?

Yes. Introductory talks, hands-on workshops for product teams, and executive sessions. Contact →

What language is it available in?

Currently in Spanish. An English edition will be considered if there's sufficient interest.

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