Day 2 Panel: Looking ahead: Designing with AI in 2026
This video is featured in the AI and UX playlist and 1 more.
Summary
William Gibson famously claimed “the future is already here — it’s just not very evenly distributed.” This is particularly true in the fast-moving world of AI, where practitioners in other disciplines are already wrangling with new issues that will soon impact design. This panel brings together an expert technologist, creator, and ethicist to discuss key AI developments and how these developments are impacting their work. From these three lenses, they’ll grapple with what this means for design over the next 12 months.
Key Insights
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AI has become a frequent topic for client and advisor discussions, influencing project directions and expectations.
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Creative professionals benefit more by understanding how to train AI models than by just using their outputs.
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AI serves better as a creative partner or muse than as a solution that replaces deep creative thought.
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Instant AI-generated visuals risk short-circuiting essential parts of the creative process, especially for beginners.
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Educators notice students rapidly adopting AI tools to self-learn, shifting their role toward troubleshooting guidance.
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Ethical AI use requires creators to actively engage with tools to debate nuanced issues rather than abstaining from them.
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AI outputs often reflect biased or incomplete training data, affecting representation and inclusion in creative work.
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Fundamental creative truths, like maintaining one's core aesthetic and deep process, remain unchanged despite AI advances.
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AI's effectiveness varies by creative genre, requiring intentional adaption for chat, visual, or audio outputs.
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Creators should consider legal and ethical implications of AI-generated content, including copyright and cultural sensitivity.
Notable Quotes
"I think to understand how they work, it’s not just understanding how they operate, it’s understanding how to make the sausage rather than consume the sausage."
"AI is like my coach. It’s like my bench player. It’s on my team, but you can’t rely on one player."
"There’s a reason we’re always taught to write notes or when we revise, we write notes out by hand, the hand remembers."
"Instant visuals are an enormous danger because they can skip important steps in the creative process."
"Students won’t just wait for me to give them a workshop anymore. They’re just doing it, and I jump in to help troubleshoot."
"People want to demystify AI because most have been native AI users without even realizing it."
"If you say you won’t use AI, that’s even more reason to use it so you can debate the ethics intelligently."
"We have to think about who is our audience. That’s not going to change because of AI."
"Some AI companies charge for services even when their datasets are limited and can misrepresent certain populations."
"Your job is not producing assets; it’s usually some other kind of process. If it’s only about assets, find a better job."
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