What AI Actually Does (And Doesn't Do)

AI design tools can generate interfaces, create variations, produce wireframes from prompts, and iterate on concepts faster than any human. This technology is genuinely impressive and will fundamentally change the nuts and bolts of every industry.

But somewhere in our collective excitement about these capabilities, we've either wrongfully equated sophisticated execution with strategic value, or deliberately sidelined the strategic work because it slows down the path to revenue.

AI can create interfaces. It can't understand why someone might need that interface in the first place.

AI can optimize people to click 'buy now' but it can't question whether what you're selling is good for them.

AI can generate dozens of layout options. It can't tell you which one will resonate with a specific community or cultural context.

The approach, problem-solving, and user value that a solid designer brings to a product…the ability to ask "should we build this?" before "how do we build this fast?", remains irreplaceable.

That kind of thinking takes time, experience, nuance and a uniquely human perspective, at least at the time of this writing, but apparently that’s money we don't want to spend.

The Speed to Money Problem

What's particularly disappointing is watching industry leaders frame "speed to market" as the ultimate virtue, when what they really mean is "speed to revenue."

A (hopefully) uncomfortable truth: If you rephrase "speed to market" as "speed to money," you might realize how short-sighted(and ill-inspired) some of your motivations really are.

You can use AI to ship faster, but if you're shipping the wrong thing to the wrong people at the wrong time, is there value besides the potential for market share?

I've spent nearly two decades watching products succeed and fail, and the ones that create lasting value aren't necessarily the fastest to market, they're the ones that solve real problems in ways that actually matter to real humans.

But "solving real problems" requires research, empathy, iteration, and strategic thinking. All things that take time. All things that cost money upfront. All things that capitalism in a hurry wants to optimize away.

Why Strategic Design Can't Be Automated

When I defend design as irreplaceable, I'm not talking about the ability to make things look good or follow design system guidelines. I'm talking about the metacognitive work that happens before, during, and after the visual creation:

Problem framing: Taking ambiguous business challenges and turning them into solvable human problems.

Cultural fluency: Understanding how solutions land differently across communities, contexts, and lived experiences.

Systems thinking: Seeing how individual features connect to broader user journeys, business ecosystems, and societal impact.

Ethical reasoning: Making decisions about what should be built, not just what can be built profitably.

User advocacy: Representing the human perspective in rooms full of people optimizing for metrics over meaningful experience.

These considerations push beyond mere tactical execution and rightfully respect human judgment, cultural awareness, and the ability to hold and synthesize multiple perspectives simultaneously.

An AI tool might help you execute a solution faster, but it can't help you understand whether that solution creates more problems than it solves.

The Long-Term Cost of Short-Term Thinking

Here's what concerns me most: we're watching people with the biggest platforms actively participate in the devaluation of their own expertise because it serves short-term financial interests.

When design leaders say "AI will replace designers," they're misusing their influence to create market conditions where human creativity and strategic thinking become expendable, and the market will listen. If you don’t respect your own craft, why should they?

When you tell investors and founders that the years you spent developing empathy, learning to solve complex problems, and building cultural awareness have no lasting value, why would they give you headcount and budget to the contrary?

We're optimizing for quarterly growth at the expense of sustainable innovation. We're choosing efficiency over effectiveness. We're mistaking movement for progress.

And the long-term cost of this thinking is a flooded market of rapidly created mini-projects. Flash in the pans that serve no real needs, financially lucrative hopefully but fleeting, most certainly.

What We're Actually Optimizing For

I want to be clear about the pros and cons of it all, because this is no way a condemnation of emerging technology. As a kid from the AOL dial up era of the internet I remain floored by the realities of today. What’s taking place before our very eyes is prologue to a world that a decade or so ago could only be described as science fiction. I don’t take issue with the rapid(and ongoing) development of AI in and of itself. I take issue with how dishonest everyone is about what we’re truly optimizing for.

If you're optimizing for shipping fast and capturing market share quickly, then yes, AI-assisted workflows will help you win in the short term.

If you're optimizing for creating meaningful experiences that solve real problems and build lasting relationships with users, then human insight becomes even more valuable.

If you're optimizing for building products that consider cultural context, accessibility, and long-term societal impact, then you need humans who can think beyond conversion metrics, but that seems to be a factor that’s decreasingly included in the consideration set for what we build and why.

The problem isn't the tools. The problem is that we're optimizing for outcomes that aren’t inherently rooted in truly helping any one market. It’s a thinly veiled question that’s spoken out loud as “What are the world’s biggest problems to solve?” that in practice relays as “Where’s the biggest bag of money potential and what gap can we fill quickly, for profit?”

Now self-admittedly maybe I’ve been wearing a naive set of rose-colored glasses my entire design career, and have a more intimate connection with my chosen field. I happily welcome an elder in the craft to correct me with “Matt, it’s always been this way” and shake me out of the naivety of idealism. I’d like to hope that there was, and still is, a sector of the industry that truly connects to designing things because they’re meaningful to people.

Five Things to Consider, even if you wouldn’t, do it for me please :)

If you're a designer, design leader, or founder trying to navigate this moment, here are five questions worth asking before you hand over strategic thinking to algorithms:

1. What problem are you actually solving? AI can help you execute solutions faster, but it can't help you identify which problems are worth solving in the first place. Are you building something people need, or just something you can monetize quickly?

2. Who are you building for, really? AI can optimize for user behavior, but it can't understand cultural context or lived experience. Do you know who your users are as humans, not just as data points?

3. What are the second and third-order effects? AI thinks in patterns and optimizations. Humans think in consequences and systems. What happens after your product succeeds? What behaviors are you encouraging or discouraging?

4. How do you define success? If success only means revenue growth and user acquisition, then yes, AI can help you optimize for that. But if success means creating value, building trust, or solving meaningful problems, you need human judgment.

5. What legacy are you creating? AI optimizes for immediate outcomes. Humans can consider long-term impact. Are you building something that makes the world better, or just more efficient at extracting value?

The Future of Human-Centered Design

We're at an inflection point where we get to decide what role human creativity plays in an AI-augmented world.

We can choose the narrative where efficiency trumps everything else, where speed to money becomes the only success metric, and where human judgment gets optimized away in pursuit of quarterly growth.

Or we can choose a different story: one where AI tools amplify human creativity instead of replacing it. Where strategic thinking becomes more valuable as execution becomes easier. Where the uniquely human aspects of design: empathy, cultural fluency, ethical reasoning, become competitive advantages in a world increasingly optimized by algorithms.

AI won't kill the design industry. But our obsession with short-term gains and our willingness to devalue human expertise just might.

The choice is ours. But we have to make it consciously, not just let market forces decide for us.

What are you optimizing for? And are those the metrics that actually matter for the future you want to build?

As always, stay curious. Stay inspired.