AI Does Not Replace Designers. It Does Not Design At All.

I do not believe AI will replace designers.

Not because AI will not do the job (or parts of the job) of designers, but because what we assign to the job of a “designer” today is too often not actually design.

We have lost touch with what it means to be a “designer”.

I believe AI will reconnect us to the original definition of a designer, and will make designers more valuable, not less.

The job of a designer today is less about design, and more about tool operation. Using Figma and Adobe's Creative Suite have become so closely tied to a designer’s workflow, that the process of expressing design through those mediums has become synonymous with design. While Figma and Adobe Illustrator definitely have their place in the design process, they are only tools to express design, but do not design themselves.

To design is to imagine, create, and decide upon the structure, look, and function of things. It is to creatively direct an outcome, informed by taste, rationale, and constraints.

The process of designing is a process of definition, of figuring out and envisioning what needs to be. Design is not about using tools, it is about everything that goes into defining what you do with the tools.

While AI has proven to be effective at executing functions and generating various forms of graphic illustrations, AI does not design. Design requires vision, intention, and direction. LLMs and Generative AI are not visionary, intentional, or consciously oriented.

AI is fundamentally a prediction engine. It is trained to derive the most likely outcome based on what is specified by the human prompting it. AI makes generalisable assumptions based on the world “as is” (or what “has been”). To design is not to take the world “as is” or “as has been”, but to imagine the world as it should and could be. Design is a process of innovation, and innovation rarely comes from predicting what is most likely. AI is not best for novel creation, but rather to iterate on what already exists.

AI is also not a feature or a product, but a capability that will continue to expand the surface area of the software we use. While our software will inevitably become more powerful and useful, it will continue to be bounded by its physical constraints. Figma can only express ideas in pixels, and generative AI can only derive output from the data it has learned from. The human mind is free of those constraints, and can generate ideas from highly unpredictable or curated datasets, and free from pixels, images, or even words.

Humans are uniquely positioned to develop the vision, intention, and direction required to design. Our innate ability to imagine, combined with our creative impulse to problem solve and re-think things is what makes design possible, and does not need to be prompted. It stems from our biology.

To bring back the original definition of a designer is therefore to associate the craft with human creativity, independent of the tools used to express it.

The integration of AI in design tooling will make the distinction between “designers” and “design tool operators” more clear. Those that design and focus on creation will be valued differently, and operate in a different talent marketplace than those that interpret design as expertise in the tools they use.

Those that continue to conflate their design practice with "vector software operation" will see AI change their work significantly. AI will make them more efficient, and enable them to execute their work faster. When combined with streamlined design systems and ready-made UI libraries, the job of a “design tool operator” will become increasingly accessible, and hence making it less valuable in the market.

Conversely, AI will give more space for designers to design. The more designers can outsource tool operation to AI, the more they can focus on the creation that comes before it.

A consequence of reconnecting with what it means to be a designer is that we will have to confront what it takes to become one.

Every human is a designer by nature, but what makes a designer more or less valuable is their unique mind.

The expertise of a designer is expensive to practice and difficult to master. It entails developing a unique point of view, an intuitive sense of taste, and a frequent practice of tapping into imagination - all of which take time, space, and focus.

Developing a unique point of view requires exposing yourself to diverse inputs and experiences.

Developing an intuitive sense of taste requires building a resilient confidence in your own curiosity and opinions.

Developing a frequent practice of tapping into your imagination requires dissociating yourself from reality.

In a world in which culture, content, and information is increasingly homogenised through internet networks, platform algorithms, and LLMs - those that spend time outside and exploring the world will have an advantage.

Differentiating a designer's value proposition is a process of unique priming, and very few are willing to invest in what it takes.

Investing in craft will also become increasingly hard to justify. The incremental time and effort required to make something truly great will be disproportionately high relative to the time it takes to generate an image in one-click. It will be tempting for most to opt for efficiency over design, often at the cost of quality and distinctness. Only those that care enough will go through the process.

Consequently, there are, and will continue to be, very few great designers that design. This is what will continue to make them so valuable.

To conclude, I believe AI will be a catalyst to make the value of designers more obvious. I also believe it will make design a practice to reconnect with our humanity. Similar to how we are becoming more intentional about integrating mindfulness practice into our lives, I believe we would benefit from engineering more intentional design in our day-to-day.

a personal note to end on:

I am not a designer by title, but engage in design in my way of life. To design my ideas, my vision, my intention, my purpose.

As AI increasingly reinforces what is and what has been, it will become important to cultivate our inner designers to keep reimagining what could be - for ourselves and for the world. To live our lives by design, and not by default.