Home / Designing with AI (June 2026)

I've been modestly skeptical of AI. I use it every day and I have invested in a decent number of AI companies, but I can't help but roll my eyes when people tell me things like, "this is the last VC investment you will ever make" because their AI agents are going to create trillion dollar startups while they sleep or whatever.

AI has become a marginally better Google for me and it has eliminiated a few narrow types of busywork. However, in these areas it has been a 25% improvement, not a 10x improvement. I can certainly imagine it getting there at some point, but the tricky thing about S Curves is you never quite know where in the S you are.

By far AI has been the most useful with image and code generation. I've been able to build some internal tools that I never would have been able to build before. And when designing our house, I was able to quickly mock up how everything would look before buying a single piece of furniture or starting any projects. These have been 10x improvements and it already feels crazy to think about buying a couch or painting a wall without being able to see a mockup of how it will look beforehand.

I was talking to a friend about this and he wondered if AI would make everyone designers and engineers. In a sense I think it will. We all have the capacity for basic design and engineering, however, most of us don't know how to use complex tools like Figma or Python. Now AI is making it easier to use the tools to create real things.

At one point in time, very few people could write. As a result, and at risk of stating the obvious, only a few things got written down. Over time, writing and publishing became more accessible, and while that changed the business of writing over the years, it clearly didn't put all great writers out of work. Instead, it resulted in a lot more writing, from everyone from novices to professionals.

Much like writing, I can imagine a future where nearly everyone is doing a little basic design and engineering. Maybe it becomes commonplace to mock up images before buying furniture, build/customize many of the apps you use or create custom entertainment, just like how it's now commonplace to write emails, text friends, etc.

I can also imagine a world where a new crop of designers and engineers emerge who do good work but who were not formally trained, similar to how the internet gave new writers a voice. The era of us viewing anyone who can code or create a decent mockup in Figma as a magician is over.

Sometimes when it's hard for us to do something, we confuse the output of the work with the work itself. Design is not about creating images and engineering is not about writing code any more than writing is about drawing shapes on a piece of paper. Ultimately, these disciplines are about solving problems, and having the taste to do so in a way that makes people feel strong emotions. Looking around, I still see a lot of problems in the world and I don't know a single person who couldn't use an extra spark of joy.