Four Shifts Designers Can’t Ignore in the Age of AI
Over the past year, AI has gone from an experimental curiosity to a transformative force in design. It’s reshaping not just the tools we use, but how design gets done—altering team dynamics, workflows, and expectations in ways we haven’t seen since the rise of mobile.
To better understand these shifts, we partnered with Foundation Capital to create the State of AI in Design report, drawing from a survey of nearly 400 designers and interviews with leaders from Perplexity, Ramp, Anthropic, Notion, and more.
As a preview, we hosted a conversation during Figma’s Config Week between our Managing Partner Ben Blumenrose and Foundation Capital’s Steve Vassallo. We gathered a room full of design leaders, ICs, and founders to unpack where we are, and where we’re headed.
Here are four shifts from that discussion that every designer and design leader should be paying attention to. For the full picture, you can dive into the full report here.
1. From blank page to chaos: AI is changing the design process
AI has become a powerful ally in the early stages of design. Nearly 90% of designers we surveyed said it improved their process over the past year, especially during ideation and prototyping. Instead of agonizing over where to start, many now use AI to generate rough directions quickly, then shift their focus to refinement and craft.
This shift is reshaping the traditional design process. Some teams are skipping static mockups entirely, using “vibe coding” to prompt functional prototypes with real code, then iterating based on live user feedback. It’s a faster—and often more enjoyable—way to explore ideas, especially for leaner teams.
But while AI is great at generating options, it often struggles with follow-through. As Ben put it:
“The tools are really good at giving you a bunch of options. But when you actually want to do something specific—refine an idea and make it real—they start to fall apart.”
In practice, designers are stitching together a fragmented set of tools: generating concepts with AI, refining in Figma, testing interactions, collecting feedback in Loom or Notion, then looping back to polish. It’s faster in some ways but also more chaotic. Quality can get lost in the shuffle, and that's where strong creative direction and human judgment come in. AI may raise the baseline, but it’s still designers who shape what gets built—and how it feels.
2. Startups are running faster and rewriting the rules
Startups are adopting AI tools at more than twice the rate of larger companies. Without legacy processes or heavy approvals, they can move quickly to test new workflows and figure out what sticks.
Steve noted that at early-stage companies, speed is often the biggest competitive advantage, and AI is amplifying it. “You’re not encumbered by how things used to work,” he said. “You can just start fresh.”
Ramp, for example, has given every designer on their team the freedom (and budget) to try any AI design tool. When something works, the expectation is to teach others and formalize it. They’ve even built internal tools to automate legal reviews of AI terms of service, removing bottlenecks that would’ve slowed down experimentation.
That level of agility is still rare in larger organizations, though some are beginning to catch up. As Steve pointed out, “At Fortune 1000 companies, headcount budgets may be flat, but AI budgets are unbound.” The opportunity is there, but it requires the right infrastructure, education, and cultural shift to make it real.
3. Designers are teaching themselves and bringing others along
One of the more surprising findings from our research was just how many designers are learning AI tools on their own. Over 90% of respondents said they’re self-teaching, with little formal support from their companies.
There’s a disconnect between the ambition to be “AI-first” and the investment in actually making that happen. Many design leaders admitted that while expectations are rising, dedicated time or training is hard to come by. In most cases, designers are experimenting in their spare time, often learning with friends or side projects.
Ben encouraged designers—especially those at larger orgs—to be proactive. “Become the AI expert on your team,” he said. “You want to be the person others go to when they’re stuck or curious. And then create space to teach.”
Some teams are doing just that, building lightweight rituals like weekly show-and-tells, internal demos, or tool deep-dives. These small investments often lead to big returns, compounding knowledge across the team.
4.Quality and taste still win, especially when everyone’s moving fast
As AI lowers the barrier to building, it also raises a deeper question: how do you stand out when it’s easier than ever to make something “pretty good”?
Ben argued that taste, clarity, and craft matter more than ever. “In a world of average, quality becomes the differentiator,” he said. “The people who go the extra mile—who really push to make something excellent—are the ones getting noticed.”
He shared a small example from our own Designer Founders series. Rather than generating cover images with an AI tool, we hired an illustrator (shoutout to Adam Dixon). That decision, while more time-consuming and expensive, sparked a wave of engagement. The featured founder received praise from employees and customers, and their team ended up repackaging the piece multiple times for their own marketing.
In the rush to ship faster, quality can feel like a luxury. But the teams that find a way to keep raising the bar, while using AI to accelerate their craft, are the ones defining the new standard.
These shifts are just the beginning, and our State of AI in Design report is meant to offer a clear starting point: capturing what we’ve heard from hundreds of designers and leaders who are learning, adapting, and figuring things out in real time.
We’ll continue building on this research as the landscape evolves. For now, we hope it helps you reflect on where things are headed and what kind of designer you want to be in this next chapter.