AI Product Design: Your Ultimate Guide

If you’re a product designer, you’ve probably heard about AI product design software available to streamline your processes. However, you also probably have AI product design related questions, and that’s understandable.

In this post, we'll walk you through everything you need to know about AI product design, from what it is, to pros and cons, and even how it's changing the industry.

• What is AI product design? 

• What are the pros and cons of AI product design? 

• How is AI product design software changing the industry? 

What is AI product design? 

When discussing AI product design, we’re talking about using artificial intelligence (AI) as a tool to simplify or streamline the product design process. You might be curious about how this will impact you as a product designer. Ultimately, it means that thanks to AI developments, designers can automate tedious or laborious processes. Alternatively, product designers may use AI to make their workflow more efficient or assist with decision-making. 

There’s no ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to using artificial intelligence in product design. However, here are a few ways AI product design tools can assist designers. 

To generate ideas.

One way that AI product design tools can prove helpful is by helping product designers generate or refine their ideas. With the help of AI product design software, designers can input guidelines that artificial intelligence can use to help output ideas that can inspire the products being designed. In this case, AI helps ensure that product designers aren’t held back by any personal biases regarding the most efficient option and instead explore all of the possibilities. 

To automate redundant tasks. 

Ask any product designer, and they’re not likely to tell you that they enjoy tedious tasks such as reformatting or resizing graphics. Luckily, AI product design software can complete this and other similar functions for designers. Because of this, designers have more time to complete crucial tasks that can’t be automated. 

To test designs. 

Now, before you test your product with consumers, you can use AI product design software to give it a go and receive feedback. Because you can test with AI, you can detect critical design flaws earlier, saving you time, money, and frustration. 

To enhance your designs. 

Product designers can also use AI to enhance their designs. For instance, you can use an AI product design tool to analyze data collected. Then, once that data has been analyzed, you can use the findings to improve your product. 

To create documentation. 

While having design documentation is crucial, creating itself can be a cumbersome task. Luckily, AI can help designers manufacture style guides and additional documentation. Then, designers can share with developers or other key project stakeholders. This ensures alignment. 

What are the pros and cons of AI product design? 

Now that you understand how designers can use AI product design tools to simplify their responsibilities, let’s dive into some of the pros and cons.

Pros of AI Product Design

Let’s start with the obvious pro of using AI product design tools: Doing so allows you to automate arduous or cumbersome processes that you don’t enjoy. As a result, you’ll have more time to get creative, because the tedious part of your job is taken care of by the AI product design software. 

Another pro, as we touched on briefly earlier, is that sometimes, designers have biases toward certain solutions that they might not even be aware of. As a result, they might not fully explore all the possibilities. AI product design tools help ensure that you consider all of your options, as the software neatly presents you with them. 

Additionally, a major pro of using AI product design tools is allowing designers to deliver a more personalized product. One of AI’s major strengths is that it can analyze user behavior and, ultimately, create a more tailored user experience. As a result, you could see a boost in user satisfaction.

Cons of AI Product Design 

Of course, there are also potential cons associated with using AI product design software. Let’s touch on some of those now.

The first is that if product designers rely too heavily on AI product design tools, their ability to be creative and think critically could deteriorate. Ultimately, designers are valuable to a company because of the unique perspectives they bring — not because of the AI tools they use.

Another drawback to using AI product design tools is that using the software could have a major learning curve. This can ultimately take a while for product designers to learn, which could take valuable time away from projects. 

Next, there’s also the fact that there are limitations on what the AI software can achieve. While there are plenty of tools product designers can use at this point, the technology is still developing, and there are still processes that are yet to be automated. 

How is AI product design software changing the industry? 

So, how is AI product design software revolutionizing the industry? The answer is multifaceted. The main way that AI product design tools are changing the industry is fairly obvious: It’s never been quite so easy to achieve as much as you now can in so little time. Furthermore, as mentioned earlier, designers now have the ability to focus on what they love to do instead of tasks that are a must but aren’t as engaging. 

Additionally, AI product design software is changing the industry as it allows designers to make decisions fueled by data more efficiently. Now, with AI, you can easily use data you’ve collected to make design decisions, as the tools can help you quickly analyze the results and figure out an actionable way to infuse the findings into your product user experience. 

Another key takeaway about AI’s impact? It has never been so easy to collaborate. With AI product design software, you can get real-time feedback regarding what you can improve to make your product more usable. The tools will allow you to work with the rest of your design team more seamlessly. 

Use AI product design tools to streamline your creative process.

The way that you choose to use AI product design software is up to you, but one thing’s for sure: If you give the tools a chance to prove their value to you, you might quickly notice that you’ve been looking for a product that achieves what they can for years.