I’ve been thinking a lot about how AI is changing product design — not in the abstract, but in a very real, very now kind of way.

Things are moving fast.

AI tools like Bolt, Replit, Lovable, and Midjourney are already capable of generating full product designs with a single prompt. Apps and websites that once took months to create can now be prototyped in minutes and deployed to a server. AI renders visuals with a level of fidelity that used to require entire creative teams. The sheer speed and quantity of output is staggering.

But with that comes a new challenge: quality will be harder to stand out.

Taste will matter more than ever

As machines get better at making things, our job as designers shifts. The edge no longer comes from simply knowing how to use the tools — it comes from knowing what good looks like.

That’s where taste comes in.

Taste is what sets great designers apart. It’s not some mystical intuition — it’s something you can hone, something you can train. Taste is descriptive. It can be specific. It lives in the details: the balance of white space, the use of typography and color, the tone of a headline, the curve of a button, the rhythm of an interaction.

And while AI can replicate trends, it still can’t discern the difference between trend and timelessness. 

That’s our job.

Learning to See

When I talk to people who are getting into design, I always recommend this piece by Ira Glass on taste. The gist was this: You do creative work because your taste is killer — even if your current skills haven’t caught up yet.

That stuck with me.

The best designers have trained themselves to see. They can look at a product and pinpoint what’s working, what’s not, and why. They can articulate what gives a design its magic — and just as importantly, what it’s missing.

It’s Not Just About Aesthetics

Taste isn’t just about how something looks. It’s also how it feels — how it moves, how it communicates, or triggers an emotion. It is both subjective and objective, how it guides a user from A to B without friction - but what they felt while doing it. 

It shows up in microinteractions, in tone of voice, in the invisible logic behind a flow. It’s the difference between something that works and something that delights.

Curation → Creation

Once you begin to develop your taste, the next step is curation.

Start collecting the things you love — real-world products, digital inspiration, tiny moments of genius. Categorize them. Study them. Organize them into something practical. Something usable.

Then remix.

For this we can take lesson in the music industry and sampling. 

Daft Punk’s “One More Time” was built around a sample from Eddie Johns’ 1979 disco track “More Spell on You.” The original is funky and upbeat, but pretty obscure. Daft Punk took a tiny loop from it, filtered it, pitched it, and repeated it — and turned it into one of the most iconic dance tracks of all time.

It wasn’t just about the sample — it was about what they did with it. They had the taste to find it, the vision to see its potential, and the skill to shape it into something unforgettable.

That’s exactly what good design is.

You find the source material — a product flow, a visual detail, a tone of voice — and remix it with clarity and intention. You don’t need to be original in the purest sense. You need to be selective. And then you need to make.

Pull the best ideas from what you’ve seen and combine them into something new. That’s where originality lives, not in creating from nothing, but in combining existing elements with a point of view that’s uniquely yours.

Then Comes the Skill

Skill doesn’t show up first. It follows action.

Every time I start something new, I hear the same voice in my head: “I suck at design.” And I know I’m not alone. I’ve worked with some of the most talented designers in the industry — and they hear it too.

It’s the voice of the self-critic. And if you let it, it will shut everything down.

Artists, writers, filmmakers — they all deal with it. 

In a conversation on Lex Fridman’s podcast, Robert Rodriguez talked about creativity as something that flows through you, not from you. It’s like having a dialogue with something beyond yourself. When you start to identify too closely with what you’re making and your ego gets in the middle the flow can disappear. The creative process becomes blocked. That idea stuck with me. It’s a reminder that making isn’t about proving yourself — it’s about showing up, letting go, and allowing the work to happen.

Even crafting a prompt for ChatGPT, Claude, or Midjourney is a creative act. A spark of thought becomes an intention. Then it becomes a thing.

Designers on Steroids

AI won’t replace designers — it’ll amplify them.

If you have taste, if you can curate and remix ideas, if you can organize and articulate your thinking — and most importantly, if you can make — then you’re already ahead.

We’re entering a new era.

The tools are here. The speed is real.

Now it’s about taste, clarity, and execution.

So — hone your eye. Train your gut. Organize what you love. And then… just start making.