Karri Saarinen, writing for the Linear blog:

Unbounded AI, much like a river without banks, becomes powerful but directionless. Designers need to build the banks and bring shape to the direction of AI’s potential. But we face a fundamental tension in that AI sort of breaks our usual way of designing things, working back from function, and shaping the form.

I love the metaphor of AI being the a river and we designers are the banks. Feels very much in line with my notion that we need to become even better curators.

Saarinen continues, critiquing the generic chatbox being the primary form of interacting with AI:

One way I visualize this relationship between the form of traditional UI and the function of AI is through the metaphor of a ‘workbench’. Just as a carpenter’s workbench is familiar and purpose-built, providing an organized environment for tools and materials, a well-designed interface can create productive context for AI interactions. Rather than being a singular tool, the workbench serves as an environment that enhances the utility of other tools – including the ‘magic’ AI tools.

Software like Linear serves as this workbench. It provides structure, context, and a specialized environment for specific workflows. AI doesn’t replace the workbench, it’s a powerful new tool to place on top of it.

It’s interesting. I don’t know what Linear is telegraphing here, but if I had to guess, I wonder if it’s closer to being field-specific or workflow-specific, similar to Generative Fill in Photoshop. It’s a text field—not textarea—limited to a single workflow.

Haiyan Zhang gives us another way of thinking about AI—as material, like clay, paint, or plywood—instead of a tool. I like that because it invites exploration:

When we treat AI as a design material, prototyping becomes less about refining known ideas — and more about expanding the space of what’s possible. It’s messy, surprising, sometimes frustrating — but that’s what working with any material feels like in its early days.

Clay resists. Wood splinters. AI misinterprets.

But in that material friction, design happens.

The challenge ahead isn’t just to use AI more efficiently — it’s to foster a culture of design experimentation around it. Like any great material, AI won’t reveal its potential through control, but through play, feedback, and iteration.

I love this metaphor. It’s freeing.

Sarah Gibbons and Evan Sunwall from NN/g:

The rise of AI tools doesn’t mean becoming a “unicorn” who can do everything perfectly. Specialization will remain valuable in our field: there will still be dedicated researchers, content strategists, and designers.

However, AI is broadening the scope of what any individual can accomplish, regardless of their specific expertise.

What we’re seeing isn’t the elimination of specialization but rather an increased value placed on expanding the top of a professional’s “expertise T.”

This reinforces what I talked about in a previous essay, “T-shaped skills [will become] increasingly valuable—depth in one area with breadth across others.”

They go on to say:

We believe these broad skills will coalesce into experience designer and architect roles: people who direct AI-supported design tasks to craft experiences for humans and AI agents alike, while ensuring that the resulting work reflects well-researched, strategic thinking.

In other words, curation of the work that AI does.

They also make the point that designers need to be strategic, i.e., focus on the why:

This evolution means that the unique value we bring as UX professionals is shifting decidedly toward strategic thinking and leadership. While AI can execute tasks, it cannot independently understand the complex human and organizational contexts in which our work exists.

Finally, Gibbons and Sunwall end with some solid advice:

To adapt to this shift toward generalist skills, UX professionals should focus on 4 key areas: • Developing a learning mindset • Becoming fluent in AI collaboration • Focusing on transferable skills • Expanding into adjacent fields

I appreciate the learning mindset bit, since that’s how I’m wired. I also believe that collaborating with AI is the way to go, rather than seeing it as a replacement or a threat.

I love this essay from Baldur Bjarnason, maybe because his stream of consciousness style is so similar to my own. He compares the rapidly changing economics of web and software development to the film, TV, and publishing industries.

Before we get to web dev, let’s look at the film industry, as disrupted by streaming.

Like, Crazy Rich Asians made a ton of money in 2018. Old Hollywood would have churned out at least two sequels by now and it would have inspired at least a couple of imitator films. But if they ever do a sequel it’s now going to be at least seven or even eight years after the fact. That means that, in terms of the cultural zeitgeist, they are effectively starting from scratch and the movie is unlikely to succeed.

He’s not wrong.

Every Predator movie after the first has underperformed, yet they keep making more of them. Completed movies are shelved for tax credits. Entire shows are disappeared [from] streamers and not made available anywhere to save money on residuals, which does not make any sense because the economics of Blu-Ray are still quite good even with lower overall sales and distribution than DVD. If you have a completed series or movie, with existing 4K masters, then you’re unlikely to lose money on a Blu-Ray.

I’ll quibble with him here. Shows and movies disappear from streamers because there’s a finite pot of money from subscriber revenue. So removing content will save them money. Blu-Ray is more sustainable because it’s an additional purchase.

OK, let’s get back to web dev.

He points out that similar to the film and other creative industries, developers fill their spare time with passion projects. But their day jobs are with tech companies and essentially subsidize their side projects.

And now, both the creative industries proper and tech companies have decided that, no, they probably don’t need that many of the “grunts” on the ground doing the actual work. They can use “AI” at a much lower cost because the output of the “AI” is not that much worse than the incredibly shitty degraded products they’ve been destroying their industries with over the past decade or so.

Bjarnason ends with seven suggestions for those in the industry. I’ll just quote one:

Don’t get tied to a single platform for distribution or promotion. Every use of a silo should push those interested to a venue you control such as a newsletter or website.

In other words, whatever you do, own your audience. Don’t farm that out to a platform like X/Twitter, Threads, or TikTok.

Of course, there are a lot of parallels to be drawn between what’s happening in the development and software engineering industries to what’s happening in design.