We’ve all seen the rapid rise of AI chatter over the last few months, and the buzzwords that are coming along with it. People are now either AI experts or vehemently against AI as a concept and in practice. As a designer who has been paying close attention to the quick rise of AI in the world of product design, I’m becoming increasingly fascinated by the potential and opportunity that this technology presents. With the ability to streamline design processes, open up new avenues for creative exploration, and accelerate research, it is not something to be ignored. The best way to get over fear when embracing new technology is to learn more about it. Let’s look at how AI’s current impact on product design can help us envision the future landscape of design and how to use it as a tool in our kit, instead of viewing it as the enemy.

Some designers see AI as an imminent threat to their careers and the job market they’ve been trying so hard to break into. This fear has led some to brand AI as “dangerous” or “uncontrollable” in hopes of slowing down its momentum. The reality is, whether you are excited or apprehensive about this new technology, it is coming. As designers, we have the choice to embrace this new technology as a tool to elevate our processes or see it as a threat or replacement and get left behind.

Design remains an emotionally driven discipline. It requires insight and opinions fueled by years of experience and a sharpened sense of empathy for the user in order to create meaningful products. These emotional elements are something that AI has yet to tackle with success. Although popular tools like mid-journey might be able to generate endless variations of a smartwatch, to create a successful product a designer is still required to properly frame the problem through prompts, iterations, and constant feedback. To create a fully developed product, there needs to be a human to take this iteration through the full design process, like prototyping, user research, user testing, user guides, and so on.

This doesn’t make us completely immune to being replaced, a potential implication for designers is that more people outside of traditional creative occupations will be trained to use “design thinking” techniques to do their work. Designers will no longer hold a monopoly (if that were ever true) on being the most “creative” people in the room. To stay competitive, we’ll need to be consistently innovating and integrating AI into our design process in a way that can expedite our flow.

This will be unique to each designer, wherever your strengths and weaknesses lie is where you may find the most use for AI. If you’re a wizard in coming up with problems that need to be solved but have trouble visualizing that solution, AI could be that middleman to start your brainstorming. On the contrary, you may have products in mind but are struggling to find what market they belong in — AI can accelerate your research. As designers, one way we can ensure we’re not edged out of our roles is to showcase our unique thinking. What makes you hireable now isn’t going to change, but what may make you unhireable is the unwillingness to adopt and adapt to new technologies that will save companies time and money.

AI-driven design tools can make product design accessible to a wider range of people with diverse skill levels. Through the removal of barriers between professional designers and those with a passion for creating the design landscape will become more diverse, leading to an array of innovative products that cater to a variety of user needs.

Despite how eager some of us might be to fully embrace AI, myself included, a big question on my mind is:

“How do I not only stay relevant as a designer, but also thrive in this new world of AI-enhanced design?”

In my experience, AI-driven design tools like midjourney have transformed the ideation and development stages of product design, allowing for faster iterations and more efficient decision-making. As AI continues to advance, I believe we will see even more seamless collaboration between human designers and AI, leveraging the strengths of both to create truly innovative products. By harnessing the power of AI-generated suggestions, we, as designers, can make informed decisions based on experience and intuition.

A huge benefit I’ve found using these tools is that they’ve allowed me to revisit old ideas that lacked either time, inspiration, or knowledge to complete or push beyond my original ideas.

For instance, I have been trying to design a sleeping bag/shelter hybrid that could be easily manufactured locally and distributed to the houseless in major Canadian cities. I had come up with many sketches and got to the point of a final hand render of sorts, but the idea died out there and didn’t go any further. With the help of AI, I was able to see one of my earlier ideas come to life and it inspired new design ideas concerning the entry point into the shelter. With how it adapted my sketch, I was able to see how impractical it would be to enter feet first into the tent and was able to adapt my iteration, giving the idea legs again.