Back in 2021, I was having a convo with a few designers about the future of AI, its potential capabilities and future impact on our industry. After we all pitched in what we had read and learned about the latest advancements in AI, one person says, “I’m going to be out of a job in 5 years”. We shrugged it off at the time, but as I write this in October 2025, the headlines of mass layoffs in tech have been continuing at record highs with AI being one of the contributing factors. It begs the question, what does the future of design look like and what will it mean to be a designer as AI advances?
In recent years, companies like Tesla and Duo Lingo have fully invested in going with a full-on AI and robotics model in their operations only to realize that human ingenuity, problem-solving and intervention can't be substituted by technology alone. In the Tesla scenario they had to roll-back their factories to include workers, because they found that their production and efficiency plummeted and created a log jam. I believe that the future of design as an industry is similar to how we've operated with software in the past but with more efficiency, smaller teams and smaller budgets.
Industry Outlook & Impact
You can’t have revolutionary technology without it having a massive impact on industries and the workforce. We’ve seen it time and again in history, the Industrial Revolution ended as factory system machinery became more advanced, faster and cheaper than what factory workers could produce. Personal computers, smart phones, tablets and the internet have slowly but surely brought newspapers, magazines and commercial printing businesses down to a small fraction of what they were in their heyday.
What does this all mean for design? My best guess is that design teams will have smaller budgets for head count, because the production of design artifacts, assets and documentation will be automated. The best case scenario is that similar to how Tesla and other auto manufactures use a combination of humans and machines to assemble cars that we can expect the same for design teams. As companies trim the fat, designs teams will undoubtedly run with fewer people. The people that stay will have strategic roles to help shape the products, brands and software, while partnering with cross-functional teams members to meet quarterly goals.
Going further, I believe that the small and medium-size business markets will shrink dramatically, because startup founders, product and marketing departments will be able to achieve their end goals without hiring a design studio to manage their products. Specifically, web design shops will shut down, because site-building platforms like Squarespace and Wix are integrating AI models into their systems, so within minutes users will get several options for their website that they can tailor to their needs seamlessly and allow for extremely simple management in the long-haul. For a small business owner or an early stage startup, these types of resources will lead to meaningful business results for a mere fraction of the cost and time that it once took to hire vendors to create a brand, website or app.
Job Market Outlook
I remember a time in the first couple of years in my career, when few people went to school for a design degree. There was a small job market, it didn’t pay particularly well, work/life balance was abysmal and the career outlook was murky at best. Applying for jobs was excruciating because there were a handful of jobs on the market and hundreds of people would apply, so getting a response required lots of work to standout amongst the pack.
As businesses realized how integral design was to their success thanks to Silicon Valley, more and more designers were needed across marketing, brand and tech. Companies were investing more and more into design by the year, building in-house teams and seeking out agencies for long-term engagements. The rise of UX design bootcamps also allowed a lot of people to pivot careers to design in the 16 week timeframe. Within the last 15 years, there’s been a boom within design that made this career choice look better and better year after year.
Entry-Level Job Market
The bigger downside here, is that entry level jobs will decrease dramatically as has already become the norm across several industries this year and it will be harder for designers to find jobs. While I say this strictly from a designer’s standpoint the same can be said for marketing, development and brand teams as it will take fewer people to execute a large workload. Given the unpredictable nature of the industry, the cost of education increasing and value of an undergrad degrees plummeting, I can see less and less students willing to take on the risk of going to school for design. The students that will be left will be the ones that are willing to endure a tall mountain to climb.
It’s tough discussing AI within the framework of design, because there’s lots to celebrate in how revolutionary it truly is and in the same breath there’s a lot of chaos that it will create within the job market in the next few years as AI models continue to advance. Revisiting this topic in 10 years time will be an interesting case study in how AI has shaped the world that live and work in.