Designers, feel fine!
During the Q&A of our recent panel discussion on Design Systems and AI, an intriguing question emerged.
If AI agents can understand context and content, and select the most suitable content representation pattern and modality accordingly, what role remains for the UX/UI/product designer?
We're entering an era of non-linear digital experiences. On a broader scale, we're racing towards the convergence of physical and digital experiences and ambient computing—a user experience journey impossible to map.
AI is essentially pulling the context rug from under our feet, leaving us without familiar ground. In digital products, context is the product itself. Our current frame of action is THE APP.
Apps will start to fade. They might become vintage accessories, like Sony Walkmans or MySpace, or perhaps just a hobby. But not us designers. We'll prevail as we always have, since the moment we invented the artificial.
Here's a glimpse of what our discipline might look like in the near future—part speculation, part humour, with some quirky names thrown in:
MyAPPers
...think YouTubers, but for apps. In the post-AI world, apps as we know them could spring from a single prompt. "Show me my stocks next to cat memes" becomes the cat stock app. Anyone will be able to build and share an app in minutes, much like what's happening with ChatGPT prompts. Publishing an app will become as commonplace as uploading a YouTube video, and social app-sharing platforms will inevitably emerge.
Hybrid creatives
Hybrid designers will emerge from the pairing of Artificial and Human Creatives. Artists and creatives will team up one-on-one with AI agents, training them not to replicate styles or follow aesthetics, but to enhance their unique vision.
These personalised design agents will be more companions than replicants, engaged in a virtuous cycle of learning and creating with their human counterparts.
This pairing will allow creatives to explore new forms of interaction with their artificial counterparts, as the agents learn to interpret any input into any output. Imagine a designer creating a visual identity through dance. Art will resemble magic more than ever before.
A.I. Product designers
"Traditional" UI/UX designers will likely pivot (back?) towards physical products. As AI-powered devices can take any shape and support any interaction modality, AI products will exist with or without screens. Smartphones in their current form factor will become relics of the past.
But until then…
Enter sentient design. Digital product designers must learn to treat AI as a design material. That's what sentient design is all about. Big Medium and Josh Clark introduced this topic. Their sentient design articles and talks helped ease my robot-related fears. Here's hoping they'll do the same for you.
Sentient Design: AI and the Next Chapter of UX - Josh Clark
…or you can get a taste of the Apocalypse with the new terminator anime series ➡️ TERMINATOR ZERO
Fear, or hope. It’s up to you.
