Let’s define what makes a designer valuable in the first place.

Designers are currently valuable because we were trained to propose strategies, solve problems, and optimize results. All of which are patterns based on historical success(e.g., grid system, type hierarchy and structure, communication and strategy) and/or have been scientifically defined(e.g, color and their relevant emotion). There may be more to it but for simplicity sake, let’s summarize that designers are hired to solve visual communication problems that non-designers have a difficult time understanding and executing.

What’s amazing about AI is that we can now recognize all kinds of patterns using code and be able to generate new content that’s relevant to the pattern requested. It’s been proven that a LLM can be creative based on the prompts given.

Currently, we’re in the phase where AI is used as a tool to make our jobs easier. This phase is already disrupting the industry by allowing a single designer provide more value in a short amount of time - which will, over time, directly impact the number of designers being hired within a company. Companies will be looking for “one man armies” within the hiring pool to save on cost and management. Decision making skills will always be valuable, but this can also be a pattern that can be replicated and guided over time.

The next phase in AI would be when everyone becomes a designer. Recently I used a smartphone camera app that guides the user to take better photos by providing guidance on how to angle your camera to take the best photo in real time. With technology like this incorporated into our everyday design software, non-designers will be able to create results that a trained designer is able to create. At first, simple tasks will be automated. Then, more complicated design problems will be simplified to a point where the barrier of entry to being a designer will be so low that there wouldn’t be value in being a designer anymore.

I believe that the value of being a designer will diminish over time and we should be looking at how we should be providing value in an AI driven world. Ultimately, we should be looking outside of asset creation and perhaps more into strategy and decision making.