AI in Design: threat or a tool?

A lot has been said about AI lately. Some love it. Some fear it. Others don’t really care. They just want to get through their workday.

As a designer, I’m probably somewhere in the middle. Cautious, curious, slightly overwhelmed. But also strangely energized by the tools that are showing up. Not because they’ll replace me, but because they might actually help me create the kind of work I’ve always wanted to do. With fewer compromises.

AI can now write text, generate images, build websites, improve accessibility, speed up production, sort content, suggest colors, create animations, and offer inspiration. All in seconds. But the real shift isn’t about speed. It’s about how it changes the role we play. The doing matters less than the deciding. That can be both freeing and demanding.

It’s no longer just about how good your execution is. It’s about the taste behind your choices. And how you use the tools to bring them to life.

Design isn’t going away. It’s evolving. And the designers who embrace AI — without blindly trusting it — are going to be more relevant than ever. We’re still the ones shaping ideas, structure, feeling, clarity, emotion, and meaning. But instead of being production bottlenecks, we become curators of outcomes.

To me, that’s not a threat. That’s a win.