The world is now seeing a major movement in machine learning, automation and AI.
This movement, led by academic AI research cooperatives & businesses, is bringing cutting edge technology to almost public availability.
Thanks to recent advancements in machine learning algorithms and major leaps in computing power, potential that was recently very limited to the analytical space, is now exploding in the generative space.
The ability of machine learning models to produce unique creations means that we will soon see many tasks that were once exclusive to humans, dominated by machines.
This is not to say that humans will be completely replaced by machines, at least not in the foreseeable future. This does mean that huge parts of the work that we do, will be done by a machine; better, cheaper and faster. Substantial automation and higher abstractions will not steal our jobs, but will free us to be more productive and more creative.
We believe that the world of product design will not remain unaffected. It is going through a paradigm shift as we speak.
There is a clear growth in expectations from digital designers, but the processes, the tooling and the investments are lagging behind.
We as product leaders feel this increasing friction almost every day. Delivery is delayed, stakeholders are frustrated and designers are overwhelmed by the complexity and the demand.
Former revolutions have taken design tools to the cloud and enabled collaboration. The next revolution will be augmentation and will emphasise the human-machine hybrid.
The higher availability of generative technology now gives us a chance to re-think ways of working that we have taken for granted and allows us to break many status-quo.
Generating new and unique creations, applying widely accepted UX principals, rationalising and optimising designs, shortening the loop between ideation and delivery, supercharging creators, empowering stakeholders and bridging the gap between the former and the latter. These are just the tip of the iceberg.
We call this Augmented Design and we believe it is the future of digital design.