I don't think that AI is going to "kill design" in the next few years (as some pundits are claiming). However I do think we reached "peak designer" several years ago, and the volume of designers needed over the next 10 years will be less than the previous 10. (This is as much to do with the rise of design systems leading to the industrialisation of design, and the power shift of decision making, as it is AI)
There was a time when design was slow, considered and informed. This was not simply a matter of culture or temperament. It reflected the economics of software at the time. Development used to be slow, expensive and risky. If you built the wrong thing, the cost of fixing it could be enormous, so product teams created space to think before they made.
We find ourselves at a singular moment of time. As an industry we’re starting to reach what I call The Feature Event Horizon. The point at which the time it takes to ship an idea is almost the same as the time it takes to come up with the idea in the first place. As we get closer to the threshold, time dilates. reality warps and we start to experience process collapse. What happens on the other side is anybody's guess, but it’s going to be bumpy. Let me explain. But first, let me start with a story.
The shift from search box to chat box is reshaping the web. And the companies building the models want to own the browser that delivers it. But to understand what’s shifting, it’s worth remembering how we got here.
For decades, marketing has been a game of visibility. Say something loud enough, often enough, and eventually people will remember you. That was the awareness era — billboards, banner ads, jingles you couldn’t scrub from your brain even if you tried.
As artificial intelligence continues to evolve, it’s becoming clear that many of today’s most powerful models have been trained on the collective output of the internet: blogs, articles, forums, books, podcasts, and countless other forms of media — all without consent. Unlike traditional creative industries, where reuse often comes with licensing fees, attribution, or royalties, AI’s use of this material has so far operated in a grey area: one that assumes participation without permission and generates value without compensation.