The emerging role of the AI designer
Imagine a dark and foggy morning in London in 1806.
The only light sources on the streets would emerge from lamplighters. This vital profession was in charge of lighting, maintaining, and putting out gas lamps before electricity.
A lamplighter was a common role in 19th century cities
Technological shifts have introduced the need to invent and reduce countless roles throughout history.
What new roles will AI introduce?
Forward-thinking companies, such as Grammarly and Meta, have formalized dozens of new AI-specific roles, including Machine Learning engineers and Ethical AI linguists. Many traditional organizations have also appointed AI leads to spearhead efforts.
Understandably, the AI revolution has been led by deeply technical roles. Next, we’re seeing the emergence of a role that brings these technical capabilities to the hands of users - the AI designer. For example, I saw today that the European IT consulting company Solita is recruiting AI designers. It’s also been in the plans of many clients of mine.
In this week's issue, I’ll break down:
- The role of an AI designer
- The skills required for an AI designer
- The best background for an AI designer
The role of an AI designer
An AI designer bridges the technical opportunities of AI with a deep understanding of user needs and business challenges.
The role of an AI designer is to:
Analyse and understand the problems and needs of customers and other stakeholders
Employ user-centered design principles to design AI solutions that are intuitive and beneficial
Partner with business stakeholders to ensure AI solutions drive business results
Stay ahead of the development of AI to make sure solutions are realistic and harness the most relevant AI technology
Champion AI awareness and skills within the organization
Bring together an ethical approach to the deployment of AI
As you can see above, the role of an AI designer sits at the intersection of design, AI technology, and business. They lead the discovery and design of new practical AI solutions to real business challenges.
2. The skills required for an AI designer
Based on the role above, there are three crucial skills for an AI designer:
A deep understanding of user-centered design. Notably, the intuition to first discover real problems to be solved and not impose technical solutions in search of a problem. Visual UI design can be a helpful skillset but often not required as many generative AI solutions are more conversational and not graphic
Business acumen and the ability to facilitate projects. Identifying and driving forward AI solutions cuts across several traditional organizational boundaries from development, marketing, sales, legal, and design. As such, AI designers must be adept at navigating this complex web of stakeholders to shepherd AI solutions that bring real business value.
Knowledge and keen interest in AI. The world of AI, particularly state-of-the-art generative AI, is developing at a breakneck speed. It’s impossible to stay abreast of these developments without a passionate interest in following the space. In addition to weekly updates on the progress of AI, AI designers need to have a fundamental grasp of machine learning principles.
No one person can know and do it all.
That’s why AI designers need to have a deep enough understanding of these three different dimensions. They’ll typically partner with design, business, and AI specialists to push projects forward.
3. The best background for an AI designer
As the role of the AI designer is so well-rounded, there is no single right background for it.
When hiring for this role, I would look for these backgrounds:
Business analyst or product manager with technical and design inclinations
Service or UX/product design with a bent toward strategic thinking
Data scientist or software engineer with interest and capabilities in facilitation and design-thinking
Besides a particular CV, I look for personal characteristics of enthusiasm to learn, ability to navigate uncertainty, and analytical rigor.
A bridge over disruptive waters
But do we need AI designers if AI is embedded in everything?
Doesn’t everyone need to be well-versed in AI as the new material for design?
Yes, and yes.
As the field of AI is developing so rapidly, we will need specifically defined roles around because:
designing for generative AI is so fundamentally different from traditional digital design
staying ahead of AI developments requires a significant bandwidth that is not realistic for everyone within an organization
AI designers shouldn’t hoard all the AI projects and knowledge within the company. Their role is to spearhead the design of AI solutions, champion interest and skills in AI, and help the company form a robust approach to AI. As they accrue expertise in AI, it’s also their responsibility to spread it within the organization.
AI will be so ingrained in our organizations that a specific role might be redundant in some years. By 2034, the neural interface designer might be the hottest design job.
But for now, hiring or appointing AI designers is a solid bridge towards that future.
