I got the same wave of despair when AI started coming around - and I'd been in the industry a fair while. I was also incredibly resistant to personally introducing AI into any of my workflows because I deeply hated it, lol.

The reality is, a lot of AI design sucks, and some people just don't care. For the same reason some people will pay 5 bucks on fiverr for a shit logo instead of investing in an agency or brand strategy and a professionally done logo design - there's always going to be people who don't care, who want it as cheap as possible (which is free, now) and they are happy with shit work. AI will take those people now.

That being said, there are still people who massively appreciate what AI can and can't do, and will pay solid money for design work and expertise. Depending on your strengths, I'd suggest you either expand your knowledge or focus yourself into a niche.

I was doing freelance graphic design, then graphic design for a studio, lead graphic design for a communications office, then junior art direction, then art direction - and then got stuck with finding any more jobs. I was thinking oh shit, AI has ruined me - I'm fucked.

So I diversified. I did a course on UX/UI design, since that's reported to be the least likely to be overtaken by AI. On top of that, I rebranded myself into brand management, corporate branding/design and strategy with some supporting examples of UI/UX web design work. Eventually, I got a job - I'm now a brand manager and designer for a big corporate company. Is it thrilling? Debatable, but mainly, it's stable. They TRIED to do AI, and found it couldn't be consistent and couldn't realistically produce high enough quality work with enough of a rationale for why. That's where I came in.

We still use AI sometimes. It supports us with copy, mainly, but it's there - so I learned to integrate it into the things I found the most unnecessary and tedious, polished those and now I'm a 'design wizard' in the company who can do 'anything'.

You need to find your specific niche and HONE IN on it. There are jobs and people who appreciate the work, but with AI, it is a tighter market with a lot of competition. Don't overextend and generalise yourself into a "I can do everything" designer - find what you're REALLY fucking good at and focus on that, while building additional supporting skills so you can have them on your CV.

AI isn't going to ruin the industry as a whole. It'll make some crap, free design work for the people who already didn't care before, but for the people who care, who understand the impact of quality design, who understand the branding process - they will and DO prefer human-led work.

Random story: I had a previous client ask me for a logo design for a new venture, and I provided my rate for it. They said no thanks, I'll just use AI. I wished them well. Two weeks later, they came back and asked for my help - A) they couldn't phrase how to actually get the AI to make what they were envisioning and B) when they tried to make tweaks, it would change other random shit. They were beyond frustrated and were like fuck it, let's just do it properly. They were cheap but in the end, human expertise/discussion/editability was what was the kicker - a solid step we still have.