At my 6th year at South by Southwest (SXSW) 2025, I had the privilege this year of curating and moderating a particularly timely session: “Design Jobs in the AI Wave: From Risk and Opportunities.” The energy in the room was palpable, reflecting the profound transformations AI is bringing to our lives and, perhaps most acutely for those in attendance, to the design profession.

To navigate these uncharted waters, I was honored to host three distinguished design leaders: Arin Bhowmick, Chief Design Officer at SAP; Janaki Kumar, Chief Design Officer of Global Banking at JP Morgan Chase; and Purvi Shah, Vice President of User Experience at Target. Our conversation aimed to move beyond the hype and delve into the tangible impacts of AI on design roles, focusing on the aspects we, as a community, can influence.

Below are some of the most thought-provoking takeaways from our conversation.

AI as a Partner, Not Just a Tool

AI is no longer a passive tool for designers—it’s becoming an active collaborator. Arin Bhowmick (SAP) described how AI helps him manage vast amounts of information. “I do use AI for many things, one of which is around summarizing the amount of sheer content I get in my work,” he shared. Purvi Shah (Target) highlighted AI’s role in removing mundane tasks. “The first thing that came to mind actually was I don’t have to make pivot tables anymore! So I don’t know if anybody shares in my pain there, but now that pain has gone away, which is amazing,” she noted. Meanwhile, Janaki Kumar (JPMorgan Chase) is experimenting with AI in research. “Some of my the recent experiments that I’m very excited about are in the area of research. As you do qualitative and quantitative research we get a lot of information. But then how do you make it accessible? How do you consume it?” she explained.

However, AI’s growing role raises an important question: How do designers ensure that AI remains an aid rather than a crutch? The panelists emphasized the importance of maintaining human-centered thinking, with designers acting as the bridge between AI capabilities and real user needs.

The Changing Skillset of Designers

While the conversations at the World Economic Forum in Davos focused heavily on reskilling and upskilling, the specifics of which skills designers need were often missing. Our panel filled this gap, at least in design, by identifying the key competencies that will define the future of design.

• Strategic Thinking & Business Acumen: Designers can no longer afford to work in isolation. Understanding company strategy, business goals, and AI’s impact on product development will be essential. “Design is really about the expression of the intent to do the critical thinking,” Arin Bhowmick emphasized.
• Soft Skills Matter More Than Ever: Janaki Kumar stressed the importance of empathy and collaboration. “Sharpen your soft skills, right? And what that, what I mean by that is, we have empathy. We talk about empathy, deepen your empathy and have the empathy for your stakeholders… and really radical collaboration,” she said. Purvi Shah referenced the World Economic Forum’s report, further validating the need for designers to master creative thinking and active listening. “The critical skills of the future, according to this report, are things like customer orientation, service orientation. It is creative thinking. It’s systems thinking, it’s empathy, and active listening.”
• Technical Literacy & AI Fluency: Conversational design and understanding AI’s capabilities are becoming critical skills. As Arin Bhowmick pointed out, designers must grasp how AI systems work. “Understanding where data is coming from and how data is used to build these AI systems is gonna be important. So our data designer. And the third one is the interaction model. That end users have with AI is changing… So data design, conversational design, and strategic sort of thinking,” he stressed.

Scaling Design: AI as a Force Multiplier

One of the longest-standing challenges in design has been scaling limited resources. AI presents a solution, but with caveats.

Purvi Shah sees AI assisting understaffed teams. “Is there a way that I can think of Gen AI a little bit as that staff augmentation?” she suggested, while Janaki Kumar emphasized the need for strong foundational design principles. “In this agentic world, patterns will become even more important… You could have a mess on your hands,” she warned. Arin Bhowmick noted the potential for AI to help with design systems and research. “We have embedded our design patterns and standards as a conversational aspect within the design tooling environment… AI can definitely help a lot with not just the assumption piece, but in framing the protocol, framing the studies, analyzing the results.”

Design’s Evolving Influence

As AI redefines roles, designers are moving beyond traditional UX/UI functions and into strategic leadership. To advance, designers need to connect their work to business impact. “Designers who understand business strategy can shape AI-powered experiences in ways that drive real value,” Purvi Shah said.

At the same time, the convergence of design and AI is accelerating. The future may see designers leveraging AI to enhance their workflows. “How do we utilize those tools in a nimble and a fast way in order to create the impact that we need?” Janaki Kumar noted.

Maintaining Human-Centered Design in an AI-Driven World

AI is advancing rapidly, but human intuition, creativity, and ethical judgment remain irreplaceable. The panel emphasized that designers must proactively engage with AI and shape AI-driven experiences responsibly. “We have to continue to lean into inclusive design. I think there are inherent patterns within the data sets that we’re feeding… that without being checked can continue to perpetuate some of those biases as well,” said Purvi Shah.

As we wrapped up the session, I encouraged designers to step boldly into this evolving landscape by continuously seeking opportunities in both corporate and entrepreneurial contexts. The opportunities are immense, and those who embrace AI while maintaining a human-centered mindset will lead the transformation.

This is just the beginning of the conversation. Let’s continue to explore how designers can shape the future—one that is not just AI-driven, but human-empowered.