Where designers will be in 5-10 years, Bali parties, and Adobe MAX!
We asked professionals in our Discord community about what role designers will play in the next 5-10 years. We are also hosting parties in our Bali creator villa and going to Adobe MAX!
Designers in 5-10 years
“As a designer with 5 years of experience, I see the role of designers evolving significantly in the next 5-10 years. AI and automation will play a much larger role, allowing designers to focus on creativity and strategy. Design will increasingly drive business decisions, becoming central to shaping product direction. There will be a growing emphasis on ethical and inclusive design, ensuring products are accessible and trustworthy. Immersive experiences, like AR and VR, will become more prevalent, and designers will need to master creating in these spaces. Finally, systems thinking will become crucial as we tackle larger, real-world challenges.” - Nischhal 🇳🇵
“I think the future of AI-powered designers looks pretty grim. Education in design principles is important but what's more important is continuing to utilize those principles in your career. Junior designers can't just start with art direction. You have to make mistakes in order to grow, and the window for those mistakes continues to shrink. Business expectations for design continue to accelerate as consultants and middle managers buy into the advertising of AI as a magical tool. In my expectation, it's going to make it a little easier for seniors to absorb more work that would have traditionally gone to juniors and mid-career designers, and it's going to be harder for juniors to enter into the space. At some places, designers may be entirely replaced by AI in the hands of project managers. Things will get harder for everyone -- if quality remains a primary concern.
The more designers come to rely on AI, the greater the risk of monoculture, but also, the greater the risk from model collapse as more and more training data ends up being something an AI already cooked up. I think the last remaining work for human designers will be the things that are difficult for computers to do. Workshop facilitation, presentation of work, anything that's still viewed as essentially human. But maybe the most important skill will be persuading management obsessed with P&L sheets that human-powered effort will result in better outcomes than farming the work out to an AI.” - Molly
“The role of designers will evolve to focus more on strategic thinking and creativity as AI handles routine tasks, while also expanding into areas like immersive technologies and ethical design. Designers will collaborate more with cross-disciplinary teams and take on strategic roles, influencing product direction and business outcomes. Emphasis will grow on creating personalized, sustainable, and socially impactful solutions, making designers key players in shaping the future of experiences and products.” - animecid032
“In the next 5-10 years, designers will play a pivotal role in shaping immersive, AI-driven experiences. The toughest challenge for designers is standing out in a market that demands both technical skills and creative problem-solving. However, opportunities are vast for those who embrace change. Fields like AR/VR, AI-driven design, and sustainability offer exciting new avenues. Despite these advancements, the core challenge will be maintaining a human-centered approach, ensuring designs remain accessible and meaningful.” - Ashwana
“I see a sharp decrease in demand for Product Design roles, and a modest increase in demand for Service Design, and Conversation Design.
That said, I do not foresee design roles becoming more strategically focused. I think only designers see this, and everyone other than designers see strategy as Product Management's domain.
At smaller companies, or on teams that work on smaller or internal-facing projects, Product Owners will be tasked with leveraging AI-based design tools to keep engineers tasked with work.
There may be an increase in demand for Product Managers with a design background. PMs who are hostile toward design may get pushed out.
But I don't see design roles assuming the responsibilities of PM. What I do see is we won't have the same headcount levels for designers that we had in 2022 for the rest of the decade.
[Edit] I'm on the fence about whether or not the UX Engineer role will become mainstream. Some people think UXEs will replace Product Designers... but this industry has told the visual people to learn visuals plus one other thing for 20 years, and never managed to succeed. I don't see it changing just because of AI.” - Dan Hiester
“I really think the demand for a design engineer would increase exponentially. Particularly in the startup space. But I don’t think that would mean replacing product designers” - Tanvi
“I’ve seen a lot of people saying that the role of the designer will be replaced soon by writers. I am an architect by profession and there was an AI conference I attended where a man demonstrated a software that generated 80% accurate construction documents AND A FULL 3D MODEL in about 30 seconds. Obviously a human being is still needed to review and edit the drawings, but with the level of AI we have now getting 80% accuracy is insane.
I say that the designer will be replaced by the writer because pretty soon, all we will need to do it be able to effectively communicate to a robot what we want from it. Coding, designing, copywriting, and so many other fields are changing forever with the recent development of AI.” - Owen
“Designers are gonna be fine as people, but I definitely see company side of things changing. A team of 5 designers probably going to be just 1 with a bunch of different AI tools. I expect most designers to become freelancers, design itself as a career to be mainly contracted. Companies won't see value in designers except when its needed so they will just contract them. On the other hand, new design frontiers will still need designers as AI doesn't have enough information to generate in new fields, looking at you AR and VR. It can create the concept and the steps but to design it, probably a bit more difficult.” - Naram
“The original responses to this question are all [may be?] AI generated. And they also are all probably inaccurate - I worry about the state of design if all we do is ask AI to generate us nonsense. I honestly see it relatively staying the same. I think it’s up to the company to choose what impact design has. I would hope we can champion accessibility more and absolutely do not go anywhere near accessibility with AI with a ten foot pole. Whether new or different job titles emerge is pretty unimportant.” - Emily
“I don't believe AI will ever fully replace designers. I imagine design teams will be made smaller and expected to produce faster with the wide plethora of AI tools designed to increase productivity on the market. I also think that with the oversaturation of the job market, a multi-talented designer will stand out from the crowd. A designer that can effectively market or implement their designs in code will have much more value to a business than someone that can only design.” - Kelly Jin
“I feel like AI will lift the floor of design but a good designer will still be the difference between a good and a great product. The new copilot, Arc browser, Zen browser, etc are going in a new but familiar direction and I think that’s the next big paradigm.” - Aanish
“I'm having a hard time understanding how a drastic reduction in the number of designers (or their demotion to contract employees without benefits) can be articulated as 'designers will be fine'. Most people here seem to agree that one designer will absorb the work of several, if not many. Many Individual, highly talented designers will survive, yes, but that doesn't mean good things for the profession.
Hoping that designers will continue to exist because businesses see value in us misses the point that the reason we're employed is because businesses see value in us. As soon as they can get more value without bearing the cost of humans and their silly professional traditions like "pride in their work", they will do so, and it would be malpractice for them not to. We don't have a seat at the table. We're not even guests. We're the help.
The next major trend in user research is AI-powered models. Because it's cheaper and faster to query an AI pretending to be a person with specific behavioral and demographic traits than it is to conduct actual qualitative interviews. We streamlined user testing by removing the user. The same thing is happening everywhere - a metastatic process that probably won't cease until the AI bubble bursts.” - Molly
Adobe MAX
Is anyone going to Adobe MAX in-person in Miami this year? Founder Grace Ling will be going! Do reach out on LinkedIn or Instagram if you’d like to meet up.
We might also host an event! Photo from last year’s Adobe MAX and our Design Buddies meetup
Grace will be flying from Bali to Miami and then back to Bali this time. Thanks Adobe!
In-person events
🇸🇬 Singapore
Thank you all for coming to our meetup in Singapore!
Thank you Singapore Product Design for hosting with me + Design Buddies and Open Government Products for the space. Thank you to Natalie Oh, Qi Jie Lim, Toby Gail, and Alwyn Tan for making this all possible. Thank you Stan Chang Khin Boon and Taskade for sponsoring our food. Also, check out Singapore Product Design's new design magazine!
🇮🇩 Bali, Indonesia
We are also hosting parties in our creator villa in Bali. Come join one of our upcoming parties - Kawaii Halloween Party on Sat Oct 26: https://lu.ma/halloween-bali
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