AI already acts as an incredible product designer because it makes design capabilities accessible to every single person.
When asked if AI will be a good product designer, Silber asserts it already is one, though it serves as an accessible tool for everyone rather than a replacement. ✦ AI generated
Ian Silber · Lenny's Podcast · 2026-08-16 · original ↗
starts at this moment · 22:50
“Do you think AI will ever be an extremely good product designer?”
Maybe one way to put it is I think it already is an incredible um product designer. [laughter] Um it it really is actually already great. The cool thing about it though is it's accessible to every single person. Um, and it's a tool that anybody can use. I do think it's really good. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean that it's like the best visual designer or best at, you know, uh, information hierarchy or or typography or even, you know, user experience and interaction design. It's not necessarily like the best at any of those.
verbatim transcript · starts at 22:50
22:45sounds crazy, but like engineers never thought it would be able to write code the way it is now. Um, so just yeah, thoughts on just how good AI will get. >> Maybe one way to put it is I think it already is an incredible um product designer. [laughter] Um, it it really is actually already great. The cool thing about it though is it's accessible to every single person.
23:06Um, and it's a tool that anybody can use. I do think it's really good. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean that it's like the best visual designer or best at, you know, uh, information hierarchy or or typography or even, you know, user experience and interaction design. It's not necessarily like the best at any of those. It's impossible to predict where things are going. And like I said earlier, like you know, how much has
23:32changed in three years? Of course, they're going to continue to get better. Um, but the way we think about it and and I and I really do believe this is like we're building tools to enable people to be more creative, to be um to to do more, to build more. And so it's it is already a great designer, but you it's at your fingertips to kind of
23:52figure out how to use it and how to get the best out of it. Where do you think human brains will continue to be most valuable as AI gets better at product design specifically? What are kind of like the remaining areas for us to be useful? >> Truly understanding [snorts] what people need. um you know I mean the human uh feedback loop of watching people use something and and