Design’s role in shaping the future of creativity in the age of AI

Navigating the AI Frontier: How Design Shapes Creativity’s Future at Web Summit Lisbon 2025

Mr. Eric Snowden, SVP of Design and Head of Adobe Design, addressed Web Summit Lisbon 2025 on design’s evolving role in the AI era. From Adobe’s unique position at the nexus of foundational AI models and creative tools, he offered insights into how designers can adapt and thrive amidst rapid technological shifts, emphasizing human creativity’s enduring value.

Mr. Snowden noted a paradox: AI simplifies creation, yet makes standing out harder. He criticized many current AI tools as “slot machines” lacking tactile control and iterative process crucial for true creative breakthroughs. Adobe’s vision integrates AI into tools that maintain creative control, embracing the “messiness” where genuine innovation occurs, rather than just generating outputs.

He asserted that AI tools are merely instruments; designers are the true strategic differentiators. Mr. Snowden distinguished between “design for delivery” (focused on specs and UI) and “design for alignment” (leveraging design thinking to overcome company roadblocks and accelerate decision-making). He emphasized “design for alignment” as design’s core superpower and most valuable contribution in an AI-driven landscape.

The Adobe Design team’s AI engagement extends beyond traditional UI/UX. They are involved in model training, ensuring commercial safety and ethical content. Designers also define the AI model’s personality, voice, and tone for consistent communication, establish quantitative measures for output quality, and ensure product equity representing diverse human experiences. UX itself is transforming to temporal, AI-generated elements, demanding new, fluid design frameworks.

Mr. Snowden predicted a bifurcation of design roles: some designers will become highly specialized experts, while others will broaden their skill sets, embracing new responsibilities like “vibe coding.” Adobe’s “vibe coding” initiative empowers designers to build, deploy, and test prototypes, and even fix bugs and add features to products like Premiere on iOS, with minimal engineering dependency. This blurs traditional boundaries, allowing creative professionals to drive product development more directly.

Mr. Snowden cautioned against prioritizing “time to market” over “customer value” in an era of easy creation, illustrating this with the “sea of sameness” from early AI tools. He stressed that unique ideas and a discerning “curatorial mindset” are now critical for content to stand out. He also highlighted the challenge of disappearing junior-level jobs, crucial for learning through failure, urging collective responsibility to nurture the next generation of creatives. Ultimately, human creativity is the new currency, with designers’ inherent attributes being future-proof and invaluable for differentiation.