Will UX Design Be Replaced by AI and You Lose Your Job?

It’s a rise of new AI tools everywhere. When I open my LinkedIn, I immediately see that a new AI product is promoting its services for designers, developers, marketers, etc.

I remember a few years ago AI was something new, and unexpected. No one exactly knew how this technology will be used in the future. Today we are surrounded by many new AI tools that we couldn’t imagine before.

Now, looking back at those times I couldn’t imagine how my life will be without these new AI tools, especially my UX design career. AI becomes better and better every day and can do more tasks. But there is a big question. Should you worry if AI is going to replace you as a UX designer?

Human Touch Takes Over

I’m a big fan of ChatGPT and I use it daily. It makes my life so much easier, and I can save a lot of time.

For example, I can ask AI to write a user scenario, help me to identify the proper colors, ask about best practices, etc. In terms of the information search, I save hours of my time.

This is where I see that ChatGPT is way stronger than humans. But it doesn’t mean that it will replace me as a UX designer.

There is something that AI doesn’t have right now, and will not have in the future — the human touch. When I say human touch, I mean that artificial intelligence is a super cool tool to utilize routine tasks that don’t require human thinking.

Artificial intelligence is using algorithms and the knowledge that we humans provide to it.

As a result, AI is a perfect tool to quickly find, match, and identify. But when it comes to the creation process, AI is a weak tool. Especially this is a weak tool for you as a UX designer.

Your design process starts with understanding the problem of your target audience. You start to gather information, analyze it and provide your unique solutions.

If you ask to do the same task, AI will complete it. But I bet that you won’t like the results that you’ll see.

Designing for humans is impossible today with AI. Maybe something will be changed in the future, but you know one thing? Even if AI becomes so much strong that it will be able to understand humans, it still will be not the best tool to solve your design challenges.

Algorithmic thinking is the base of any AI. It’s closer to the developer’s world than to a designer. Fortunately, a UX designer is a person who is working in the creative industry.

Yes, it might be not as creative as painters, or any other, super-duper creative direction. But still an area for your creativity, unique taste, and self-expression.

Let’s talk about a situation when you design a product and would like to get feedback from your client. And suddenly you realize that the client doesn’t like the colors that he or she saw in your work.

And right now answer the question. Will AI understand your client’s reasons for denial? Not right now nor in the future, it will be possible.

It happens because of the different natures of humans and artificial intelligence. This is why I can’t say that AI is able to replace UX designers not right now nor in the future.

You have something unique that AI can’t get – it’s your unique style, understanding of the problem, and providing solutions.

People Understanding Is for People

Now let’s talk about your design process. Every stage of your work is unique. For example, if you start to work on problem identification, you might find additional problems to solve.

When you start to talk to your target audience, and suddenly you realize that you need to concentrate on a different problem because people ask for it.

And finally, you are ready with your design solutions, but you have more than one solution.

As you see, every stage of a design process is pretty flexible, which means your final product vision might change during the end stage of the creation.

There is a strong benefit for humans in comparison to artificial intelligence. We can adapt to the upcoming changes, create immediate solutions that were not our goals, initially, and even more.

In the Matrix, movie do you remember that Neo was special because he was able to go beyond the limits of the matrix system and quickly adapt to new obstacles? This is the power of humans.

Of course, you might be thinking that AI is going to replace you in the future. If it’s not powerful enough right now, maybe something is going to change in the future.

To be honest, there are enough AI tools that potentially could replace your work even right now. But fortunately for you, it won’t happen because of the creativity lack.

This is another unique thing in humans – creativity, and understanding. What will be super creative for one person would be not enough creative for another one.

If I continue to compare more reasons, in any case, you’ll see that designers create products for humans, which means they should contain some human understanding.

When we talk to a client to discuss tastes, no one can predict what it will be. AI can provide some solutions but again if there will be negative feedback from a client, AI won’t understand the reasons behind it because it’s a super-biased solution from the client.

The client might like oh my not your design solution. And this is absolutely fine. This is your job to provide more and more design versions despite negative feedback.

So, even in the future, when AI might be able to replace designers, it will lack the human touch that we have nowadays.

Human Intuition We All Rely On

Now let’s talk about a unique sense that any human has over the machine – intuition.

You can design solutions that might be dictated by rules wishes or all the reasons that you get from clients. But sometimes you get a situation where a client doesn’t know what he or she exactly wants.

For example, your client comes to you and says that he wants to create a start-up e-commerce business in X direction, and he has a solid understanding of the functionality, but there is no vision of how the product should look like.

I got the situation multiple times, and to be honest I hate it but also love these types of clients.

On one side, I might not know the taste of my client, and my solutions might not be what the client needs or wants.

But on another hand, it’s my chance to be creative and provide my vision of clients’ problems. So my solution will be unique, and I have the freedom to express my design capabilities.

In some cases, this type of situation is very good because, with a big company where you might work, you have a strategy on how to build products.

And in most cases, there will be stages like research problem, definition, design, prototyping, and collaboration with developers. Everything is good here besides one thing – you don’t have any creativity or freedom.

Especially it’s a big problem if you work with a company that has only one product it means you will be working with the same design system, and you are not going to invent anything shortly.

In such a situation, you need some chance to express your creativity and freedom. If I compare the situation with AI which is going to strictly follow your guidelines, it won’t be flexible enough to express its creativity.

Artificial intelligence has no sense of intuition, it doesn’t know what it is, and even if it does, it doesn’t know how to use it.

Intuition is a unique sense that only humans have. It’s our superpower that unfortunately not all of us know about it, and especially not all of us are using it.

So, fortunately, artificial intelligence has no sense of intuition, and we benefit from it.

Final Thoughts

Artificial intelligence is your best friend to save you time with a particular task. But this assistant is not someone who is going to outperform you and replace you in the future.

Think about AI as an innovative tool that is going to make your life easier. It’s your helper who is going to assist your design process.

I would highly recommend not being afraid of any artificial intelligence, instead, go and check all the items that you can find and see how you can benefit from its power.

You deserve to have more time for your life, so this is why AI is going to be a huge assistant to make your life easier and more productive.