AI competes for jobs, what land to live in for designers?

(Dan Tri) - Losing projects because customers choose AI, having customers use AI to review products, that's what designers are facing. Facing the wave of technology, professionals must find solutions for their own values.

Losing jobs because of AI

“Let me do it quickly with AI.”

That was a surprising message from a customer to Vy Lam (35 years old, Ho Chi Minh City), a person who has pursued a design career for more than 10 years.

At that time, the customer needed the product urgently. At that time, her Adobe account kept having errors and could not be accessed to work.

And then after a period of waiting, the customer issued a notice saying they decided to use AI quickly, that's when Vy Lam realized: "I have officially lost a project because of AI".

Just one text message from a customer was enough to make her depressed and fall into a depth she had never thought of before.

Vy Lam (35 years old, Ho Chi Minh City), who has been pursuing a design career for more than 10 years, was stunned when the customer texted: "Let me quickly do it with AI" (Photo: NVCC).

"I have always used AI in my work. I always see AI as a tool to help work faster and expand creativity, not a competitor," Lam said.

But the above incident was the first time Vy Lam felt that AI had directly taken away her job.

She asked a series of questions in her mind: "Am I gradually being replaced", "Where is the value of a creative person when AI can do everything faster", "How do I need to change?".

Few people know that to pursue this profession for more than ten years, she has invested a lot of time and money.

Graduating in Graphic Design after four years of college, Vy Lam spent about 4 years working as a designer, then she switched to commercial photography for more than 5 years now.

Up to now, she still maintains two parallel jobs to complement each other's knowledge.

Design helps Lam think about composition, color, and visual storytelling, while photography helps her better understand light, materials, and how to convey emotions.

The combination of the two fields helps female designers (designers) always bring customers products that are perfect in both form and content value.

Every month, in addition to investing in copyrighted software, AI, data storage, equipment maintenance, and props, she also has to invest in extra tuition costs to continuously update new trends.

What made Lam think the most after the incident was not the loss of a project. Instead, she began to worry that many people's perception of the design profession was changing.

"I realize that some customers have begun to see that AI can completely replace designers. They think that just having images and text is enough without paying attention to aesthetics, layout or effectiveness of conveying the message," she confided.

That is also the reason why Lam feels somewhat disappointed and sad for many people who work in the same profession as him.

Not only the female designer above, many other professionals are also feeling new pressures.

"When I opened my eyes this morning, I saw that customer feedback wasn't good enough. When I opened my computer, Adobe was locked. I went to Facebook and saw posts full of "No need for a designer, here are 10 commands to help you have a brand identity."

The above status line from Hai Duong (25 years old, Ho Chi Minh City), a designer, shows some of the pressure that designers are facing.

He graduated with a degree in Communications and has been working in the design field for more than 5 years now.

To do his job, every month he has to spend a large amount of money on Adobe software, CapCut, buying templates, image archives and many other design resources. The total minimum cost for such basic tools in a month is up to millions of dong.

According to him, AI really helps increase productivity. Designers can use AI to find ideas, create samples, and try many design options in a short time.

However, with the popularity of AI, the number of projects he received also decreased significantly.

"Previously, I had about 10 to 20 projects per month, but now more customers choose to do it themselves using AI," he shared.

Many times, Duong also encountered situations where customers used AI to comment on his own products or even used AI to create pre-made samples and asked him to design them accordingly.

But what worries Duong more is that the value of creative labor is being underestimated by some parts.

"Many people think that now they only need to enter a few commands to have a design right away, so they unconsciously think that design work is simple and easy, so they constantly compare people and machines," Duong expressed.

The two stories above generally reflect that AI has had a profound impact on the design industry. This is why professionals have to find solutions for their value.

Fast, cheap but controversial

With just a few commands, users can create advertising and media images in a few dozen seconds using AI.

For individuals with small businesses or businesses with limited budgets, this is an attractive option thanks to its speed and low cost.

On social networks, a series of instructional videos "no need for a designer", "create an identity using AI", "design an icon in 30 seconds" continuously appear and attract millions of views.

However, many products created by AI receive a lot of fierce opposition from the community.

As noted by Dan Tri reporter, in recent months, many stores using AI to design menus and signs suddenly received a series of "stones".

Some posts stated opinions such as "If you look at the AI ​​menu, you won't buy it", "Why do I hate restaurants that use AI as their menu", "stop abusing AI, restaurants", "I'm starting to fear I'll be poisoned by AI".

Notably, many big brands in the fields of banking, book publishing, and cinema have also started using AI regularly in design and faced a similar wave of controversy.

Typically, in the case of a large publisher using AI as a book cover, many people have expressed reactions such as "It's time for the book cover to be made of AI, wouldn't it be embarrassing to sell it?", "AI is not bad but it's okay to abuse it like that", "If you look at the book, you won't want to buy it", "It's too insulting to buyers".

The common point is that the community often evaluates AI products with layouts that lack emphasis, are similar, have "fake" images, do not convey the message, have font errors and many unreasonable details.

According to Vy Lam, AI will become increasingly popular in design. However, if the user does not have a professional background, it is difficult to judge what is an appropriate result and can therefore be controversial.

Similarly, Hai Duong also believes that AI is not a bad thing, the main problem lies in how people use AI.

When seeing that AI only takes a few minutes, many people think the entire design process is just that simple. While the more time-consuming part lies in researching customers, analyzing brands and finding suitable solutions.

Therefore, when utilized in the wrong place, without touching the psychology of customers and the public, the product may meet speed requirements but may not solve the problem of communication or branding.

Designers say they are not afraid of AI completely replacing their profession.

They are more concerned that the market is increasingly tending to underestimate the efforts of designers when, in addition to design, to make a product, they also have to calculate many things so that the public can receive it positively.

Creative thinking and emotions always originate from humans

After losing the project, Vy Lam seriously looked at herself and thought about her future path.

She said she will spend more time cultivating values ​​that are difficult to replace with tools such as strategic thinking, customer companionship, and the ability to come up with appropriate solutions for each project.

In particular, she continues to bring AI into her work process. For Lam, this tool helps her free up time to focus more on strategy, emotions and customer engagement.

"When I was in college, in the first year we mainly drew, collaged, made models and did craft exercises. That helped me understand that ideas and creative thinking always start with people, tools are just a means to realize ideas," she shared.

Whenever new technology appears, Lam always tries to learn how to adapt instead of resisting. Besides, she affirms that what is more important is to continuously expand knowledge and thinking.

Similarly, in Hai Duong, AI often develops rapidly, so designers should not stand on the sidelines but must learn to adapt.

He believes that AI should be deeply integrated into the workflow to support idea generation or iterations, while designers need to spend more time improving their expertise and critical thinking.

The male designer commented that the design industry's playing field is increasingly strict, especially for those new to the profession.

To pursue a career in a new context, designers must constantly update trends, actively learn, and constantly expand knowledge to make a difference in the market (Photo: Arena Multimedia).

Previously, if you only needed basic skills to find customers, now AI has taken over many simple tasks, forcing designers to continuously improve product quality and expand their knowledge to make a difference.

According to him, the core value of a designer is to create products that meet the needs and psychology of customers and bring value to the public.

AI can create images quickly and technically correct but still lacks emotion, the ability to understand people and media context. These factors, at least, will continue to be the advantage of designers in the future.