Reed.ai

Reed Global set out to transform recruitment for SMEs and jobseekers through AI. They needed a brand and platform experience that felt smart, supportive and human balancing legacy with innovation and conversation at the core.

Sector: AI / Recruitment

Deliverables: Product & Brand strategy, UX & UI, Design system, Brand Identity, Conversation design

Role: Lead Product Designer

Live site: https://reed.ai/

Their Story

Reed is one of the UK’s most trusted names in recruitment. But with AI reshaping the hiring landscape, their ambition was to scale their mission to improve lives through work, building a self-serve platform for SMEs and mid-level candidates that preserved trust while extending their services beyond traditional consultancy. The goal was to design a seamless, AI-powered recruitment experience that could automate repetitive tasks, streamline workflows, and provide meaningful support to both employers and job seekers. At the same time, it needed to feel human, intuitive, and personal retaining the tone, trust and empathy that define Reed’s approach to recruitment. Reed’s latest AI product also required a new expression of brand, one that felt intelligent, responsive, and emotionally resonant in digital environments, particularly in conversation-led interactions. The challenge was to balance innovation with familiarity, aligning to the master brand while creating an identity and experience that could stand alone.

Discover & Define

Product: Through strategic workshops and user research, we helped Reed.ai define its core audience: mid-level candidates and SME employers. We mapped their hiring journeys end to end—not just as linear flows, but as detailed, dynamic conversations. By breaking down behaviours and frameworks, we translated these into AI-led interactions. This helped us model how Reed recruiters add value, from gathering requirements and refining job specs to interpreting soft signals and guiding next steps. Early voice and text prototypes were tested with users, shaping how conversation and interface would work in tandem. Brand: We explored three brand directions: a human avatar inspired by Sir Alec Reed, a character-led identity, and an anthropomorphised evolution of the existing mark. Ethical consultation ruled out personification, guiding us toward a universal, responsive brand. The final direction centred on an animated mark for the AI, a gesture-led visual language to reflect human storytelling, and subtle founder appearances during onboarding and ‘About’ moments. In parallel, we worked with a copywriter to develop sample dialogue rooted in Reed’s tone of voice. These examples informed our conversation frameworks, ensuring brand expression across both UI and VUI.

Develop & Deliver

Product: Building on discovery frameworks, we designed a guided experience shaped by task-based logic. Each flow, whether writing a job spec or reviewing candidates, was broken into structured steps, with the AI surfacing only what was needed next. We built a node framework defining tone, branching, intent, and expected inputs, ensuring consistency across user types and scenarios. Voice and text worked interchangeably, with memory carrying context through multi-step journeys. Features included anonymised candidate previews, AI-written CVs, and a freemium unlock model. The result: a scalable beta platform ready for user testing and future iteration. Brand: We translated the brand strategy into a responsive system for AI-first interaction. A shared colour palette bridged Reed.ai with the master brand and Reed.co.uk, while a modular component set supported both voice and text. Animated gestures conveyed support, celebration, and guidance. The brand mark became a responsive avatar, signalling listening, thinking, and speaking. Sir Alec’s styling was refined to feel warm, symbolic, and non-literal—preserving legacy without personifying the AI. All elements were captured in a design system built for scale, iteration, and growth. Read in-depth Q&A within 'Insights'