I’ve been away from work the last week, so I’ve been catching up on little bits and pieces of Config 2024. The biggest thing to come out of it, and the most impactful to designers, is the AI elements. I haven’t had a chance to test things yet; I fired up Figma and updated, but it doesn’t seem like anything is available on my end. 

Along with many other designers I felt this pit in my stomach catching the news of the AI features. It seems—again I don’t know until I test it—that the AI features will do basic UI things, along the lines of ChatGPT prompts. That’s not a concern for what I do as a designer, but it does have me wondering where all this is headed. 

For my part I focus on asking questions when I approach a design project. I am more curious about the problem a stakeholder is facing than immediately understanding any solution. Then I take that whole spaghetti of chaos and sketch it out, by hand, until I see something that starts to make sense. This is something I love deeply, and it’s more of the user experience side of design. That’s something I hope isn’t up for grabs by AI. If it is, I’d find myself rather sad. 

I’ll be watching all these new features and seeing where it goes, and am curious to see how other designers and business owners respond.