[insert skill] as a career hedge against AI.

Image created with midjourney

When I was transitioning into design management a few years ago, I used to joke that it was my hedge against the inevitable AI takeover. After all, who’d want to be managed by AI overlords, right?

Management is just one lens. I’m not suggesting everyone needs to become a manager. But anyone working behind a screen needs to think strategically about what the AI revolution means for them—and which skills are worth honing.

What’s the current state of things?

Right now the thing causing most excitement is the ability to build complex products directly from text prompts. Tools such as Bolt, Vercel & Lovable being super usable browser based apps. Then Cursor and Windsurf being the favourite code editors built on top of VS code. (Note there will likely be new favourites soon.)

Being able to describe product you’d like and to then have a working website or native app seconds later is nuts. This democratisation of building digital products is going to take a while for us to get used to and properly embrace. But the ripple effects of this will be enormous. Think about how many small agencies are out there charging £100k for a simple iOS app. Or how many amazing designers are out there who were unable to ship their ideas.

Here’s a pomodoro timer I created with Claude in about 10 seconds using the prompt: 'Build me a pomodoro timer themed like a tomato.' A silly example, sure—but it shows how easy it is to go from idea to execution. If you’re just starting out, simple prompts like this are great ways to experiment.

"English will be the new coding language," - Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang

So what does this mean for our roles as designers? How might we hedge against what’s coming?

I believe that for creative, high agency designers with good taste - this is possibly one of the coolest things that could have happened to the industry. Now let’s break down each of those into more detail.

Creativity

We’ve entered a world where the only thing really limiting you is your imagination. If you can write it, you can ship it. But the important part that comes before writing is the thinking part. What are you observing and how are you transforming that into ideas? This transformation needs creative thinking and that’s a pretty exciting truth.

"In an age of infinite leverage, judgement is the most important skill." - Naval

High agency

You no longer need anyone around you to make sh*t happen. Full stack just got an upgrade. I fully see a world where there are one person squads within businesses in future. This means that the responsibility and potential impact you can have will go up ten fold. Try being in that position without high agency. It wouldn’t go well. Start getting ahead and learning the tools which will allow you to power up.

Good taste

Thankfully, most humans like things that are well designed. Thankfully for us designers, not everyone can create nice things. There are various AI tools that can create what’s perceived to be ‘clean’ and ‘minimalist’. But they’re still a long way off from creating things that are beautiful. However, AI in addition to a human with good taste is a pretty powerful combo. Just take a look at what people are able to make with midjourney. Hone your taste and start creating beautiful things.

There’s so much more to explore—from leadership to storytelling, and how these skills will shape our future roles. But I’ll leave it there for now. What skills do you think will matter most? Drop your thoughts in the comments or reach out—I’d love to hear them!