If AI is empowering us to accomplish ~80% of the work in < 20% of the time...
Then what does that mean for the role of a designer?
I broke it down into 5 ideas 👇
1️⃣ "Taste" becomes more important than ever
When design is fully democratized by prompt engines… one of the distinguishing factors is going to be knowing what “good” looks like and being able to confidently articulate it.
1️⃣ //
It reminds me of this short Rick Rubin interview clip if you haven't seen it already
Here's one reason this gets me excited 👇
twitter.com/itsarkangel/status/1615182281068666881?s=20
1️⃣ //
I'm now even more bullish on the value of investing in my visual library of inspiration.
Soon we'll be feeding AI images and transforming entire flows to match that visual style.
So your swipe file will be even more valuable in the future 👀
2️⃣ Ingenuity > Output
AI will empower us to 10x the number of explorations that we can do within a given problem space.
When time is no longer the primary constraint, our ceiling is only capped by our ingenuity...
2️⃣ //
So much of what we value in designers today is tied to output:
☞ how many projects can you handle
☞ how many docs can you write
☞ how many screens can you crank out per week?
But when output is uncapped, our value is tied directly to the quality of our ideas 👇
2️⃣ //
We'll be able to blitz past the obvious concepts and go waaaaay wider during early product explorations.
This is going to test our understanding of product strategy in new ways 🧠
And it's why I believe AI is going to reward designers who have a strong product sense.
3️⃣ Roles will start to converge
@DanHollick said it well below:
Here's what I think this means👇
3️⃣ //
AI is going to empower anyone to design, code, write SQL queries, build automations, etc.
And that’s going to make the lines between traditional roles on a product team pretttty blurry…
So it's time to expand the surface area of how we define our role as a “designer” 👇
4️⃣ // Designers as business strategists
AI is going to empower more designers to move up the value chain.
By reducing the bulk of our current workload we’re going to be freed up to start strategizing about the bigger, meatier problems.
@mialoira said it well here:
4️⃣ //
If you're looking to level up this part of your skillset then here's a great starter from Mia below 👀
Otherwise, here's the other way I think we can expand the surface area of how we define our role as a "designer" 👇
twitter.com/ridd_design/status/1656689846310834176?s=20
5️⃣ // Design contributing to production code
@framer is the tip of the iceberg...
We’re entering a world where design isn’t going to be painting pretty pictures of what a product could look like anymore...
We’ll be expected to contribute directly to the product itself 👇
5️⃣ //
All eyes are on @figma right now 👀
Are they going to be the ones to usher in mass adoption of these new tools? Here's hoping it happens at Config 🤞
Regardless of how it shakes out ... more designers are going to become builders as a result of AI 💪
5️⃣ //
Syntax is no longer the blocker... all it takes is a solid baseline of technical literacy and you'll be able to meaningfully contribute to the ACTUAL product...
ChatGPT makes me feel like a superhuman already and we're still in the first inning 👀
So where to from here?
Start to tinker and explore what's out there!
Something that stood out to me about my interview with @femkesvs was how she hasn't historically considered herself a "builder" but already feels like AI is opening that door for her 🔑
I also shared a more in-depth version of the above in my newsletter "Design Tactics"
You can join 5,000+ other designers and get it here 👇
ridd.substack.com
I know this topic and the rate of change can be intimidating, but my aim is to inject a bit of hope into your outlook 🌞
More to come!