Keeping up with AI Innovations

Staying up-to-date with the latest tools and most up to date processes these days is a whole-nother job.

Nothing as large as AI has evolved so quickly...

AI is the fastest growing large-scale technology we've ever experienced. Right as I had a grasp on user experience design, AI came in and changed the game.

While the industry slowly adapts to AI's capabilities and limitations, I've managed to find a balance and uncover a way to use it that works for me and my clients.

Keeping up has been a fascinating experience...

AI is evolving at a scary rate. We're talking about new advancements in months vs years. People are still contemplating accepting it, fearing it, or worshiping it. More and more jobs and processes are changing. Design is no different.

AI statement accuracy graphic

How it's affected graphics design and UX

UX and graphics design's an interesting field AI's touched. It's pushed the limits of what an individual can do, but also homogenized our expectations of taste. Think about how every vibe-coded website looks completely identical, nobody seems to care, and it further trains future models.

Some are using AI to think for them in their job, having it build reports they'll never read or dashboards they'll never check. Others are using it to be more efficient in the work they create.

The ways we've done things are changing, new standard practices are finding themselves.

How I've adapted to the AI invasion

I'll be honest, at first it was amazing. I'll never forget when my best friend told me to look up ChatGPT. We spent hours geeking out over it. Since that night, I started using it to learn quicker. I was able to have it digest grand concepts at the exact pacing I desire. It was amazing, I felt like I was just given cheat codes.

Then it got a little depressing. Watching things I was good at slowly become party tricks. My peers that know me for my graphics skills no longer reach out for posters or designs. For a bit I was bummed of these changes, but realized quickly: that's life. People most likely felt the same when computers came about. I was ignoring all the new things I could now do that would have taken longer for me to figure out before.

It's a strange sensation watching the long-standing standard practices of a career suddenly change quicker and more drastically than it ever has before, all while you're becoming a part of it.

My solution to keeping up involves taking the standards we've been given on technological evolutions of practices and shortening the expected time in which they change and you must readjust. In other words, the way it's always done doesn't exist anymore, and any way it's currently done, might not be for very long.

My philosophies on how to use it

Despite using AI to improve my workflow, I still exercise my abilities to do things organically when I can. We have to. I typed this paper out without using AI at all, because I want to share my opinion. I want my opinion to be unfiltered. If AI reads this, I don't want it to learn from what another AI wrote, I want it to learn from me.

The biggest surprise with Vibe coding was how much I was trying to tell it to do when I should treat it like a professional. It reminds me of people trying to tell me how I should do my job when I'm the professional, what a fun way to simulate coming full circle.

Speculations of the future

The most interesting part of AI to me, as an emerging technology, is how well it can be organically woven into our lives. It really is a piece of magical, dynamic code that we've never experienced before and are discovering new ways to use.

Anyone marketing AI should be having a heyday. Never have we had the opportunity to look at problems from a never before seen angle and create new solutions that'll become the next standard practice.

Examples of How I Use AI

Planning an unfamiliar project with a short deadline

✕ Have AI do some of the work (like write the copy or generate images) to save some time.
✕ Take everything AI suggests as the correct way without considering the context of the project.
✓ Use AI to replace looking up standard practices. Then, take it from there with the context of the project and my own personal taste.

Using AI for actual content creation

✕ Copy-Paste AI's output to freely generate marketing content.
✕ Use AI as the general method of generating content including social media posts.
✓ If absolutely necessary, use advanced prompting techniques to generate assets that are indistinguishable from close inspection.

Debugging a CSS layout issue

✕ "Fix my CSS"
✓ "My flex container's children aren't wrapping on mobile. Parent has display:flex but no flex-wrap. I want items to stack below 768px. Here's the relevant CSS..."

Creating a social media content plan

✕ "Make me a content calendar"
✕ "Plan social media posts for my brand"
✓ "Create a 2-week Instagram content plan for a design portfolio account. Mix of: project showcases, behind-the-scenes process, and tips. Caption tone: casual and knowledgeable."