Recently, I was in New York to spend a day with design leaders across companies to understand the impact of AI on our field.
As technology is evolving rapidly, we focused our discussion on many themes.
The first thing I want to reflect on is the general sentiment that I believe is applicable to anyone working in technology: there can be a lot of doom thinking regarding how rapidly advancing AI tooling will take over (aspects of) our jobs as UI, UX, and product design become democratized. Anyone can design now.
However, there’s a lot to be optimistic about. Because ultimately, what are the talents of good product and design folks?
High levels of craft and taste can help products stand out from mediocrity.
Style is something that AI can replicate, but taste will always remain a human perspective.
The ability to craft a vision, but also show individual steps toward that vision to your team.
The ability to display empathy, be user-centric, and focus on the desirability of products and features.
Collecting and presenting evidence for fact-driven design.
So ultimately, I look at it as a force multiplier for great designers.