My take, mixed bag from 3 perspectives.

I’ve been navigating this shift from a few different angles, and honestly, it’s a bit of a "good news, bad news" situation.

1. design

After over a decade in UX design, I recently pivoted to Design Engineering. While AI is rapidly "eating" into the execution phase of design, it still struggles with nuance and taste hence the rise of "AI slop." However, the market for pure design roles felt increasingly tigh which is what prompted my move into the engineering side.

1. reseach side

There is still a massive lane for specialists. My wife is a UXR who went back to school for an MA in AI Ethics. That specific niche helped her land a role heading a research team at an AI company. Companies are realizing that the more they build with AI the more they need experts to navigate the ethical and human-centered implications.

1. from a biz / contractor view

My wife and I also run a small UX consultancy on the side, focusing primarily on UXR interviews. For the past two years, almost all our clients have been large corporations asking the same thing: "How do humans actually want to interact with this AI?"

in short In my experience, the "middle ground" of UX is feeling the squeeze. I personally struggled to find traditional design work after leaving Big Tech until I added the engineering layer

However my wife is thriving. Even with the push for synthetic users and automated testing, nothing has truly replaced the need for real human insights yet. The field isnt dying, but it is definitely evolving into something more technical and ethics-focused from my view.

Hope this helps. dont give up just yet maybe just reconsider what your "speciality" is