First of all…happy New Year! I hope you had a great holiday.

My wife, our dog, and I spent the holidays in a little Airbnb in White Salmon, Washington, where it rained most of the time…but it was nonetheless beautiful, relaxing, and rejuvenating. Plus…we loved the local bakery and brewery!

This was also the first more or less digital break I took in a loooong time. During which I thought a lot about design, creativity, innovation, and the future of these. Sure…I was on vacation and probably should have been thinking more vacationy things. Alas, the mind goes where the mind wants to go.

As I pondered these topics, I kept thinking about the underlying shifts in the (human) landscape due to the evolution/revolution of AI and business. And…whereas one might expect a listical-type synopsis of trends and predictions as the first newsletter issue of the year, I kept coming back to one central question: what is a designer in this new world?

Here’s what I think…

— Justin Lokitz

The very last article I published in 2025 was a rallying cry for designers to continue to make things as a reliable way to develop judgment, credibility, and leadership when AI is everywhere. After all, making is how we form the “why” of a design decision.

However…(and this is a BIG however), while designers of every stripe must continue the practice of making, I do not believe in 2026, the role of the designer will be defined by what they make. Rather, it’ll be defined by what they make possible.

As I discussed with both Sid, from Hibrids, and Nick, from Gauge, AI has collapsed the cost of execution. And…with that, consolidation has raised the cost of mistakes. Together, they’ve changed how organizations decide what to do next. Design hasn’t disappeared in this shift. It’s moved upstream and, in many cases, closer to consequence.

The uncomfortable truth is that a large portion of what passed for “design work” over the last decade is no longer scarce. Producing options is cheap. Perhaps too cheap! Polishing artifacts is fast. Running familiar rituals is easy to replicate. What organizations struggle with now is judgment: deciding what matters, what doesn’t, and how to act under pressure with incomplete information.

And…in my opinion, this is EXACTLY where the designer of 2026 lives.

AI didn’t just automate execution or bring fun new tools to the game. It has absolutely flooded teams with near-endless possibilities. Every prompt, every model, every agent creates more directions than any organization can responsibly pursue.

Just look back at your own chats with ChatGPT, or Claude, or Gemini, or Perplexity, etc. If you’re like me, the most common pattern you’ll find in those chats is endless directions born of new branches from seemingly endless chats and questions.

At the same time, industry consolidation and breakneck speed have tightened budgets, shortened runways, and reduced tolerance for exploratory drift. For most organizations, this equates to fewer bets and higher stakes for the bets they make.

In this environment, speed without clarity is a liability. Alignment without decision is a delay tactic. Design, when it matters, becomes the discipline that shapes focus before motion.

This is why I believe the center of gravity has shifted away from craft as differentiation and toward problem selection, framing, and evaluation. It’s probably also why many designers feel disoriented. The tools they mastered still work, but…the signals they relied on no longer convert to influence.

Craft as status is gone-ish. When anyone can use AI to “make” something that looks great (even if it’s untested), craft becomes demoted as a status symbol.

This goes for artifacts as proof of value as well.

Consensus as progress is also gone. With the above capabilities employed in an ever-more connected world, consensus-building becomes even easier for everyone to do.

That’s not to say that these are useless. It’s just that they’re insufficient on their own. In AI-saturated environments, craft is assumed. Artifacts are abundant. Consensus can be manufactured without accountability. What organizations want is someone who can narrow the field, defend tradeoffs, and help decisions stick. Full stop!

Designers are increasingly valued for three things.

First, their ability to choose problems, not just solve them. When execution is cheap, choosing the wrong problem is the most expensive mistake a team can make. The best designers help teams break down ideas into problems to be solved, and then evaluate which problems are worth solving now.

Second, their ability to externalize judgment by focusing on the PEOPLE with the problems…and testing solutions with them. The best designers do this by employing criteria rather than personal opinions. This is all about reasoning that others can understand, challenge, and reuse.

Third, their ability to design decision systems that hold up over time. Whether those are rubrics, review loops, guardrails, or shared language, the best designers are scientists whose subjects are customers. Designers design these systems to (scientifically) evaluate decisions. Though these don’t always show up in portfolios, they do shape how work gets done long after the designer leaves the room.

This is less about creativity and more about consequence.

This shift isn’t theoretical. You can see it in who gets pulled into the core and why.

Take what Nick was saying way back in July of last year. During our conversation, Nick referred to a project he worked on for a large client. While he had been hired to design some interfaces (using Figma), he took a completely different tack. Using Cursor, an AI (vibe) coding tool, he and an engineer he brought on board vibe-coded a working version of the feature he was being paid to design. In doing so, they were able to “ensure that the direction and the velocity that (they were) going in (led) to success.”

Was this what the client was paying for? Nope. Was it what they needed to make a decision about the future? Unequivocally YES!

What Nick is doing at Gauge is not an anomaly. I recently received an email from a former student and fellow Design MBA alum, Ash Kulkarni, about how she landed a position at Framer without actually applying for the job (which is a bit bananas).

While sure, Ash has a nice portfolio and LinkedIn profile, she ultimately got noticed by the hiring manager because “they loved what they saw.” And…what they saw was Ash writing about the real, consequential work she was doing for a couple of clients. This work was both design and strategy. It was making (digital) things and making decisions that led to outcomes at the same time.

In publishing her work, the hiring manager was able to follow the trail of thinking, decisions, and outcomes behind it.

What’s more, during seven interview rounds, the focus wasn’t on tools or aesthetics. They repeatedly asked about Ash’s contributions in these client projects and were fascinated by what a small team, which included Ash and Cortland Moore, was able to accomplish. That fascination is the tell. In 2026, credibility comes from demonstrated judgment in the wild, not hypothetical exercises.

Ash also points to something designers often underestimate: proximity to consequence builds confidence that reads as readiness. Because she was still doing the work while interviewing, her profile felt credible. Not aspirational. Active. Alive. The experience gave her visibility, confidence, and real-world readiness. Those are not soft traits. They are market signals.

The lesson here isn’t “post on LinkedIn.” The lesson is that designers who can point to decisions they shaped, tradeoffs they navigated, and outcomes they owned are far easier to trust with more responsibility.

In both cases, the common thread is not aesthetics or process. It’s responsibility!

A designer in 2026 is someone accountable for improving judgment inside complex systems.

They don’t just make things clearer. They make choices better…and better choices. They help organizations decide what not to do, where to focus, and how to move forward when certainty is unavailable and speed is non-negotiable.

AI isn’t killing design. It’s removing the hiding places. What remains is the work that actually matters.

Subscribe to Design Shift for more conversations that help creative professionals grow into strategic leaders.

$100,00. One amazing Creator. Post a video about your business (or business idea!) and enter for a chance to win a year with all your expenses covered.

We want to empower people to work for themselves. To live out their true passion.

Dare to Dream

_{NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. VOID WHERE PROHIBITED. For full Official Rules, visit daretodream.stan.store/officialrules.}