I asked ChatGPT the other day, “Are product designers going to be replaced by AI in the future?” It reassured me by providing six reasons with detailed elaboration on why it will not take my job. (Try yourself)

1. Human-Centered Design
2. Creativity and Innovation
3. Ethical Considerations
4. Collaboration
5. Adaptability and Context Awareness
6. Quality Assurance

Although I generally share this optimistic view, I do believe that being a designer in general will become more challenging compared to the present.

The Future Entry Level is Current Senior Level?

Just like how AI has revolutionized other industries, it is possible that in the near future, powerful AI software could fully support designers by automating all the repetitive tasks on their daily to-do lists. In other words, what the future designers need to focus on is the truly creative work that AI would not easily replicate. I still remember my rookie year, probably 99% of time was focusing on interviewing, prototyping, testing and analyzing user feedback. Now that AI start to become more capable in those job functions, the company would expect its entry designers to perform at higher level. A new report from beautiful.ai shows 93% of managers will encourage employees to use AI tools to improve performance at work. If the entry level designer will be replaced by AI, wouldn’t the future designers be expected to perform as senior designers?

Less design and more meetings?

If my prediction is true, it will be depressing. Based on my experience, designers and engineers are not fans of overloaded meetings because they disrupt our focus time. I used to and still schedule at least 2 consecutive 3-hour time slots for design focus time at the beginning of each week, but this might change! Designers now can rely on AI-powered tools for activities such as prototyping, testing, and analyzing user feedback. This shift allows designers to focus on more strategic and creative aspects of their work, which often require collaboration and communication with cross-functional teams. With AI handling the routine design tasks, designers may spend more time in meetings, sharing insights, discussing user needs, aligning with stakeholders, and making high-level UX decisions. This shift towards more meetings reflects the evolving role of designers as strategic thinkers and facilitators of collaborative design processes in the AI-driven future.

How many end-to-end initiatives we could take on?

If you were like me, working in a start-up company with limited resources and other responsibilities, taking on 2 end-to-end initiatives would already be a significant undertaking. Now, let’s imagine a world where automation is at its best, how many initiatives can we undertake? With the most optimistic outlook, my best guess would be 3. To be honest, my initial wild guess was around 5 – 6. However, when I look at my calendar and consider the number of necessary meetings I need to attend, including Standups, sprint planning, user interviews, and user testing, even with the help of automation, 3 still seem a scary undertaking. In my opinion, the key to the success of an initiative is a continuous feedback loop that involves numerous stakeholders. These stakeholders range from upstream to downstream and include management, project managers, users, designers, engineers, and potentially more if we consider the involvement of the marketing and sales teams to address product market aspects. The explosion in productivity does not imply a decrease in time spent on communication. Therefore, similar to an earlier point, the number of initiatives we can undertake is also limited by the speed of communication.

Designer:Engineer Ratio? (My answer might surprise you)

You have probably already heard about the 2-pizza rule – teams should be small enough to be fed by two pizzas, typically consisting of about four to eight people. A small team allows for optimal collaboration and autonomy. Typically, a team consists of 1 product manager, 1 product designer, and 4-10 engineers. The exact composition may vary between companies, but a common ratio is around 1:10. It is important to note that this ratio specifically refers to the designer and engineer ratio in a front-end team. For teams focusing on back-end projects, the ratio is likely to be much lower. So, what does the ratio look like in the future? The answer might surprise you. I believe the ratio is actually going to increase, which means that in the future, one designer will have fewer engineers to support compared to now. Maybe it’s my secret wish 😂, but I believe that if engineers’ work is not fully automated, it will be replaced by AI faster than that of designers. Because, at the end of the day, the job of engineers is to communicate with computers, while the job of designers is to communicate with people. Unless one day AI can communicate with humans more effectively than humans themselves, designers will still have a unique role to play.

In summary, based on my projection, I believe it is time for us designers to embrace the power of AI and begin automating certain tasks. However, we should also focus on developing skills and capabilities that are difficult to be replaced by AI. (By that, I mean buying your colleagues a happy-hour drink, share the best homemade cookies at the office kitchen, and playing golf with your boss 😉)

What do you think is the future for product designers? What else do you think would be changed in the future?