Andy Budd argues that AI tools have hurt mid-level designers more than juniors or seniors, because a few years of experience plus a good AI workflow now matches what used to take a decade to build. He frames this as the real casualty of the AI shift in design careers.
…you what to do. So I'm seeing a whole generation of designers falling back in love again with the act of making and building and shipping because they are the ones that are in charge of doing that. And it's really, really great. And it feels really freeing. So I think that's an interesting trend.
…a thing, are more senior designers or senior leads that it doesn't seem to allow for too much space for junior designers, except maybe when it comes to entrepreneurship, because they don't have, they don't have that innate product sense that's been built up for years. How, how do you address that?
…in their career. You put two or three year experience designer next to a bunch of foundation models and they can actually start shipping designs that are maybe equivalent of the mid-level designer, but at 30, 40% of the cost. And so I actually think it's the mid-level people that are being eaten up at the moment. These are the ones that haven't engaged with AI yet, or they have, but they're just a junior with a really good AI stack is indistinguishable from a mid-level person with a really good AI stack. And so you ditch the people in the middle. The other thing that I think is happening is that basically, whenever there's a pivot, the things that you knew that made you mid-level aren't relevant anymore, or many of them aren't. In the early days of the web, A lot of a lot of traditional print designers moved over to being web designers. And sure, their knowledge of typography was really…
What do you think in these scenarios happens to? I mean, we've been talking about what happens to people inside product orgs. What happens to the design industry? I mean, as a thing, is it a collapse? Because there's conferences, there's coaches, there's educators, there's a whole group of people…
It is. It's almost like Thanos has come and clicked his fingers and half of, you know, potentially half of the design world. Yeah. Who knows? I honestly don't know. I say that the bull case is its peak designer is 95%. That's entirely possible. There are plenty of people out there that will look…
Well, that seems like a good place to end this. Oh, a terrifying place
