AI won't replace designers (but it will change what we do)

Every few months, a new AI tool launches and the discourse starts again. "Designers are obsolete." "Anyone can design now." "Learn to code or die."

This misses the point entirely.

Tools change, problems don't

Design has never been about pushing pixels. It's about solving problems. Understanding users. Making complex things feel simple. Balancing business goals with human needs.

AI can generate a hundred button variations in seconds. It cannot tell you which button should exist in the first place. It cannot understand why your users are frustrated. It cannot navigate the politics of getting a good solution shipped.

What actually changes

The production part of design will compress. What used to take hours will take minutes. This is good. Production was never the valuable part.

The valuable part is taste. Judgment. Knowing what good looks like. Understanding when to break the rules. Seeing the problem nobody else noticed. These get more valuable, not less.

How I use AI in my workflow

I use AI constantly. For generating variations I wouldn't have thought of. For writing first drafts of documentation. For exploring directions faster than I could manually. For rubber-ducking design decisions.

But the AI is always working for me, not instead of me. I'm the one who knows which output is good. I'm the one who understands the context. I'm the one accountable for the result.

The actual threat

AI won't replace designers. But designers who use AI will replace designers who don't. The leverage is too significant to ignore.

Learn the tools. Integrate them into your workflow. But don't forget that the tools are the easy part. The hard part is still the same: understanding people and solving their problems.