We're Still in the AI Transition Era
It's not too late
Everyone I speak to who works in the creative industries has some sort of existential dread about AI and their career. People in their fifties like me worry about becoming obsolete while my twenty-something students wonder if their careers will ever launch. If you’ve read AI 2027, you should just go buy land and stockpile dry goods like my friend Barry. However, if you accept that the futire is more nuanced and society won’t collapse, I have a way forward. While I’ve read more then enough AI doom articles to never get invited to a party again, I have five essays for you to consider as you modify your career trajectory. To be clear, if you are unwilling to pivot, you will probably be unemployed. Here are five thoughtfully constructed approaches about how you might do this.
Use the AI Transition Period to Transition Your Career
Despite having 42 years of experience in the UX field and brand name recognition, I was surprised to read Jakob Nielsen say “abandon legacy UX methods now.”
In the great UX pivot, you have 5 years to trade yesterday’s expertise for tomorrow’s relevance. Legacy UX skills won’t save you in the AI age, but cultivating agency, judgment, and persuasion will. Most importantly, now is the time to prepare for working with super-intelligence, before it’s too late and you become obsolete. Don’t cling to a vanishing past.
Street Fighters and AI: Welcome to the New World Order
Shelly Palmer is also a professor and he has an excellent take on how I tools are going to upend the existing world order.
I recently met a 19-year-old college dropout from Detroit who launched a SaaS business that would have required a team of fifteen developers, three designers, and a marketing agency just two years ago. He did it alone, in six hours, using Claude, ChatGPT, and a handful of no-code platforms. His monthly recurring revenue hit $30K within ninety days. This isn’t an outlier. This is the new normal.
AI isn’t Coming for Your Job—it’s Coming for Your Whole Org Chart
Fast company has a dark and ominous article about how to position yourself for the inevitable wave of change that’s coming.
The truth we all must face today is that 2025–2026 will be the year companies prepare for a generational change in how we work with AI. This will disrupt nearly every industry. Org charts will be completely rewritten or scrapped entirely. But remember that you can make a difference and influence this change by simply preparing yourself as I have laid out in this article.
The AI Native Designer
Sharang Sharma has an excellent article over on Medium along with multiple external links to help you craft your own AI designer roadmap.
As creation becomes faster and accessible, a designer’s true new moat now lies in crafting AI experiences that are unique, reliable and memorable. Mastery of design principles, storytelling, and problem-solving remains a uniquely human forte.
The Tools Will Change. Your Craft Doesn’t Have To.
Agustin Sanchez reminds us that while digital tools will always change, our attention to craft is what differentiates us.
Necessity drives invention. Design long enough, and you start to see the pattern. Every discipline hits a moment when the tools leap forward and the people doing the work have to choose — adapt, retreat, or redefine what they do.
Happy Monday! I hope you’re excited about the week ahead and you’re learning new things. If you’re getting some value out of my newsletter, I’d be so grateful if you’d forward it to a friend. As always, if you have a burning question, or you’d like me to do a deep dive on any topic, just send me a message. And you can always buy me a coffee ☕ or a donut 🍩
