Design is NOT the first AI casualty. It’s about to become the biggest differentiator in the AI era.
This is exactly what I’ve been talking about in the design space. Hence I disagree with gokul here
If founders or VCs start thinking like this just hire a consultant for a few weeks to make a design system, then PMs & engineers feed it into AI and ship “good enough” we’re all going to drown in the same generic components and same-looking products.
It’s exactly like how a lot of folks use ShadCN or any other open DS and then just customize a little on top of those design systems.
People are still stuck thinking in terms of design system
The significant differentiator will be people who can actually make great design systems with real craft and good design✨
Taste will be the biggest differentiator because AI can only produce so much and you can only customize so much on existing open-source design systems.
We will still need good designers to do the design craft and make these systems very personalized to the company. And if an engineer or PM starts doing this role, there won’t be much great output in terms of design because they are focusing on shipping everything. So design goes for a toss.
For sure, good designers have always been a conjunction of either a designer PM skillset or designer eng skillset but it’s more essential than ever now.
Creating good design is hard it takes craft, it takes taste, you need to sit through and figure out what a good design would look like. In the AI flood of functional slop, real taste wins.
Design isn’t dying it’s about to matter more than ever!
DESIGN: THE FIRST AI CASUALTY
I'm increasingly sure that 2026 signals the end of product design as a full-fledged stand-alone function within companies. If so, it will be the first role / function to be eliminated by AI on a go-forward basis.
Instead of hiring FT designers, startups are hiring / will hire design consultants to create a design system that the founder likes (this takes a few weeks max). Once the design system is finalized, PM/Eng feed it into their AI tool of choice to generate prototypes. The design system is refreshed annually by the same consultant.
Larger companies will likely not backfill design roles and will do some targeted attrition to reduce the design department to 20% the size it is today.
If you're a designer, I think you have two choices:
1. Become an entrepreneur: Start a design agency and become the go-to resource for design systems for startups and even larger companies. This can be a good recurring revenue business.
2. Become a builder: Add PM/Eng responsibilities to become a product builder.
Would suggest you embrace this proactively vs waiting for the other shoe to drop.
I'm really sorry about this - some of my best friends and the people I admire most and have learnt the most from are designers - but it seems inevitable.