AI isn't replacing UX, it's upgrading it
You don't wanna miss the boat
If you’ve been living on another planet for the past few years, you might not know about the impact caused by the rise of artificial intelligence. If you look at the news, you might even think AI is the name of a serial killer. After all, AIs are killing jobs, companies, and professions.
All this alarmism isn’t for nothing. The truth is, using AI really can speed up and automate a bunch of tasks, which is definitely going to affect the job market in some way. So you’re probably wondering: “Is an AI going to take my job?”
I wish I could answer that for you. Honestly, I ask myself the same thing. But I think if you want to stay relevant as a UX Designer, you shouldn’t worry so much about AI taking your job, but rather about another designer who knows how to use AI better than you do.
Just like Thanos, AIs are inevitable. According to a survey by Adobe, 62% of UX designers are already using AI tools to boost productivity and automate tasks. This isn’t some future possibility. It’s happening right now!
So, let’s check out how AI is turning into our ultimate design sidekick.
Why should I bother embracing AI?
Don’t be that guy who rejects everything new just because it’s trendy or starts sentences with “Back in the day….” Please, don’t.
The question isn’t “if” you’re gonna use AI in your workflow. The real question is “when,” and the right answer is “yesterday.”
Using AI doesn’t mean you have to use these tools for everything you do. It doesn’t mean AI will do all your work while you just sit back and watch. What they can do is give you some superpowers in certain skills, like the ones listed below.
Efficiency: A bunch of manual, repetitive, or boring tasks can (and should) be boosted with AI. This can give you more time to focus on the important, strategic stuff or seriously speed up how fast you get things done.
Creativity: When you let AI handle the slow and boring jobs, you free up more time to get creative. You can also use AI to quickly try out new ideas and options, giving you way more variations and approaches to play with.
Accuracy: AI can look through tons of user data almost instantly and spot patterns, preferences, and pain points. Taking a data-driven approach lets you see in detail how people use your product and figure out how to boost your numbers.
AI in action
The skills mentioned above can be put to use in a bunch of different stages of UX design, like research, brainstorming, and testing.
Understanding users
Desk research: AI is an awesome way to kick things off when you’re looking for existing info. Its ability to summarize and spot patterns can help you uncover really valuable insights super fast.
User interviews: Besides just summarizing, this is where AIs really shine. They can take notes by transcribing conversations live and can even point out important stuff while you’re talking.
User feedback analysis: AI helps sort through and analyze user reviews to spot design issues and figure out what users need.
Personas creation: Using data collected about users, AIs use machine learning to group and segment people based on their behavior and preferences.
Creating solutions
UI layout generation: There are a bunch of AI tools out there that can automatically create design solutions just from prompts, whether you need wireframes or more detailed designs. Some of these tools even let you use the code they generate, which can really speed up development.
Prototyping: If you just want to show how navigation and interactions work, GenAIs can help you come up with the story and user journey, from brainstorming all the way to building wireframes and interactive prototypes.
Copy: Large language models can write awesome text. Just give them the requirements and craft your prompts well. They can also help polish and improve existing copy for any situation.
Design inspiration: AI can speed up design creation and serve as a great source of inspiration. While AIs aren’t perfect yet at producing final graphic deliverables, that doesn’t stop you from using them to quickly test out lots of ideas and possibilities.
Evaluating
Tests and refinement: To get the best results when using AI for UX evaluation, it’s smart to combine what AI can do with the skills and insights of a human designer. Working together like this lets you catch more issues and come up with better solutions than relying on just AI or just a person alone. So, using a mix of AI tools and hands-on designer input is the way to go for a thorough and effective UX review.
AI still needs us (at least for now)
Even though AI is super impressive, there are some important things only humans can do. Stuff like empathy, originality, critical judgment, and ethics really need that human touch. I actually wrote an article all about this. You can check it out below.
Upgrade yourself!
The hype around AI isn’t just talk, it’s real and it’s changing the game in UX big time. AI is helping us automate stuff, dig up deep insights, and work way more efficiently, which means we can create user experiences that feel more personal and meaningful than ever.
But here’s the thing: AI alone isn’t enough. We still need to keep the focus on people. AI’s a powerful tool, but the real control is in our hands. Instead of letting users just watch from the sidelines, we’ve got to figure out how to boost what we can do together with AI. Trying to build artificial intelligence has actually shown us just how complex and amazing the human mind really is.
So, if we use AI smartly and responsibly, working hand in hand with it, we can take UX to the next level, making experiences that aren’t just smooth and efficient, but truly human and unforgettable. Bottom line? AI’s cool, but humans are still the real MVPs.
References
Lu, Yuwen (2024). AI Assistance for UX: A Literature Review Through Human-Centered AI.
Mehta, Bansi (2023). UX of AI How to marry the two for ultimate sucess?
Qingxiao Zheng, Yiliu Tang, Yiren Liu, Weizi Liu, and Yun Huang. (2022). UX Research on Conversational Human-AI Interaction
Macy Takafoli, Sijia Li, and Ville Mäkelä (2024). Generative AI in User Experience Design and Research: How Do UX Practitioners, Teams, and Companies Use GenAI in Industry?
Gavin Lew, Robert M. Schumacher Jr. (2020). Why Artificial Intelligence Needs User Experience
If you’re wondering where to start with AI interactions, I recommend the AI-Powered UX: Next-Gen Product Design course on Udemy. In this course, I teach how to use AI for research, data analysis, ideation, and prototyping, transforming the way you design digital products. The course is in English but includes Portuguese subtitles.