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“Midjourney draws better than me.”
“Figma already knows where to put the button.”
“The customer said: why do you need a designer if you have a neural network?”
These phrases are not meme jokes, but real thoughts of designers in 2025. AI already draws banners, generates landing pages, and packs logos in a second. And it seems that the market is no longer in shock, but is simply quietly revising budgets for design teams.
But despite the hype, there is a nuance: design is not only a picture, but also a context, strategy, user experience, and emotional depth. And while the neural network is generating, someone has to decide what exactly is worth generating and why.
Let’s talk about 5 design roles that AI will not replace, because they are about meaning and ideas, not pixels. And if you haven’t disappeared into the feed of generated covers yet, it’s time to figure out what will remain yours when the routine goes into the neuron.
AI can produce a hundred visuals, but it won’t tell you why this one will go into production. Because there is no brand, product, target, user pain, or tone of voice for a neural network. It only has a request: “make it beautiful.”
An art director is not about “choosing the best picture”, but about knowing what it is for. He is like a director: he sees how the visual should work, to whom it speaks, how it fits into communication, marketing and product goals. Not “beautiful” but “clearly in context” is what distinguishes an experienced art director.
AI generates quickly. But it’s a human who filters, combines, thinks, and puts a full stop. Because creative without context is just noise, and in the hands of an art director it is a tool that solves a problem. That’s why this role will only get stronger.
AI can draw an attractive interface. But it won’t understand why the user got angry on the second step of the form. It doesn’t know when a person has doubts, when they get tired, when they don’t see the “confirm” button and leave. For a neural network, experience = pixels. And for a UX designer, experience = path, logic, emotions, and barriers.
UX is not what it looks like, but how it works. And here artificial intelligence is powerless without a human understanding of context, behavior, needs.
Yes, AI can create a nice landing page in the style of “2025 UI trend”. However, a UX designer will make sure that this landing page is easy to use, you want to go through it to the end, and there are no questions like “where is the button?”
While the neural network generates the wrapper, the UX designer creates the feeling of interaction. And it is this feeling that decides whether the user will continue to move on or close the tab.
AI can generate a thousand banners, and each of them will be technically “good”. But the brand will fall apart on the third one. Because the neural network doesn’t care if it’s “the same style,” “the same voice,” or “the same emotion.” It does not understand that a brand is not just a logo and colors. It is a sense of recognizability, unity, and integrity in every visual.
This is where a brand curator comes into play – a designer who makes sure that the visual language of the brand doesn’t fall apart after a couple of requests to Midjourney.
It’s not just about “is it the right shade of blue”. It’s about whether the brand sounds like a brand, whether the user’s trust is not broken, whether the company leaves the same impression at all points of contact.
This is especially important for:
AI is a tool for creating images. And a brand is a sequence that forms a feeling. And while the neural network generates, it is the human who keeps the visual system together. So that the brand does not just “exist” – but speaks with one voice and looks like a whole person.
AI can wrap a screen beautifully. But he doesn’t know that after this screen, the user falls off en masse, and the product loses profit. The interface is not about buttons. It’s about the path to the goal. And if you don’t understand what exactly the business goal is, no generation will help.
A product designer is not just a visualizer. He is a strategist and analyst. They work not only with screens, but also with conversions, features, user scenarios, development limitations, and sales pressure. AI is not capable of this because it does not take into account metrics, behavior, or business goals.
This is a role at the intersection of UX, UI, analytics, and business. And while AI sees only a pretty button, a product designer sees its place in the funnel, its effectiveness in the hypothesis, and its impact on revenue.
AI doesn’t think about goals, it only fulfills requests. That’s why a product designer is the one who turns design into a profit tool, not just a pixel composition. And that’s why this role will become even more important.
While some scroll through Twitter looking for “Will AI replace designers?”, others are already managing generative programs as a production. A new hybrid role has emerged on the market: the AI curator. This is a designer who is not just “good at Midjourney” but builds the process of working with a neural network as part of a design system.
Their task is not to draw, but to create a result using AI:
This is the role of the future, which is being born right now. Because companies need not just image generators, but people who know how to make AI work for the brand, goals, and style, not just “make it pretty.”
AI does not have creative thinking, visual taste, or understanding of the task. But in tandem with a designer who knows how to manage it, it becomes a powerful toolthat opens up new formats, scales production, and really gives you an advantage. AI is not an enemy. But only if you are a director, not an extra in someone else’s shot.