The Value of Designers in the AI Era

A talk delivered to the DMN – Design Management Network, Tokyo. March 2026.

Today I would like to send a positive message.

While there is no doubt AI is disrupting our lives, I want you – designers, researchers and innovators – to remember your value and to take your role seriously. You are the most important people for the future of your company.  

I have spent four decades practicing design and as you have seen, worked all over the world with some of the best designers. I have learnt a lot, and seen a lot, but today I would like to share just 3 things that I think are important for you to know, not just in these AI times, but to fuel your life as a designer.

Those three things are:

1. Find your Voice

2. Visualising & Prototyping is a Superpower

3. Don’t Try to Sound Like a Businessperson

But first – let’s start with a Universal Truth:

“85% of your success if due to your personality and ability to communicate, only 15% is due to technical skill.“

I am sure we all know somebody who is not as great as you, or as skilful, but is better and more consistent at communicating?  Or a brand that doesn’t offer as much as yours, but has a clearer and stronger message? In my experience those people and those companies that communicate well, rise to the top quicker and stay there longer.

So, my first point today: 

1. Find your Voice

Why is it important to find your voice? Well, we are living in a very noisy world where everything looks and feels the same – cars, products, food, banking apps etc. Business metrics and design research increasingly categorise, quantify and de-risk the creativity out of our skill set. At the same time, if you look at social media you will see everything is being channelled into increasingly narrow areas of interests and expertise. It’s the echo-chamber of commercialism.

In this bland world, if we let it, design is becoming an algorithmic activity that AI could conceivably perform. And to be honest when I look at some of the soleless products in the market, I think it already has!

In this environment:

Those people and brands who have a personality, a clear value – succeed.

Those famous designers I have worked with, those big brands, do exactly that. It’s your job as a designer to find your voice, your difference, both for you individually and the companies you work for.

Find what you love, what excites you, and differentiates you from others.

In 2026, it is a fact just being a good designer is not enough. It was ever thus. While I know in Japanese culture, it’s not good to stand out too much, it is a necessity. It doesn’t mean you need to be noisy like Donki (a discount store), you could have a quiet voice like Muji. But you need to have your own voice. And don’t let others decide for you.

Inside Outside Japan.

As you heard, I found my voice in my love of Japan and in helping companies navigate East and West – it’s unique in the design world, but I wish I had clearly communicated it 30 years ago.

To save you time, I encourage you to follow your passions, this is where you will find your voice and your difference as a designer. And guess what? it’s also valuable for business, and is how you will break the algorithm. It’s not just me saying this, others far smarter in many different walks of life, feel the same way.

My second point:

2. Visualising & Prototyping is a Superpower.

Early in my career I understood the power of the prototype, sketch, rendering or design framework. These make ideas that don’t yet exist tangible and physical. They persuade businesspeople and consumers of the value of an idea. They are the reference we can all coalesce around.

These skills are unique to you (designers), and I want you to remember:

Businesspeople can’t do this, but it’s natural to you. You’ve practised and mastered it – it’s your power to influence, a Superpower.

And this is where AI is powerful. By acting as your personal intern, AI can help you to generate and iterate variations of your ideas earlier and faster.

AI tools can bring your ideas alive in resolutions high enough to persuade your colleagues of the value of your idea. These tools can help you cost effectively try out the precious ideas that just 10 years ago you would be nervous about sharing in case you fail.

Use AI to turbo boost your vision, while you focus on being creative.

But remember you are the human. You are the one who has the voice, the experience of real life, AI does not, it will guide you towards the common, the known, the less risky. It’s your job to apply human imagination and to represent real humans. We all need to explore AI but not be controlled by it.

Now to my last point:

3. Don’t Try to Sound Like a Businessperson

In my experience businesspeople work with designers precisely because we don’t sound like them. We don’t think like them or dress like them – Left and right brain people see the world differently. It’s not wrong.

My point is:

Seeing the world differently is a strength, not a weakness.

Designers bring something that is valuable to business and differentiates brands – Ideas. Recently there’s been a lot of talk about designers getting to the C suite, to the management table to have influence. If that is your goal, your skill, if it’s ‘your voice’ then go for it and good luck. But for me, and many of you, having creative freedom and being an inspiration to your colleagues, through Ideas, is the best way to have influence without becoming somebody else.

I started with this fact:

‘85% of your success if due to your personality and ability to communicate, only 15% is due to technical skill.‘

It’s here I see the use of AI, as a great enabler. Why not use it to help you research and write your presentations to management in a language that you and they understand, to turbo boost your prototyping skills, while you concentrate on being creative and finding your voice.

Use AI to amplify your difference, make it louder, prototype it, communicate it better.

I started by wanting to give you a positive message – lets end with one.

After four decades in the design business, I still love it. It has allowed me to be who I am, to practice what I am good at, to meet and work with some great people and travel the world at the same time. If you want them, I would like those things for you.

I see the AI era as one of the most exciting for design. It’s a moment to grasp and utilize these powerful, cheap tools to communicate our vision.

But more importantly it’s a time to reflect and refocus on what designers do best – have great ideas, make sense of the future, bring beauty, clarity and humanity to those who experience what we create.

— Thankyou

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