AI Use is Up...But Impact Lags

📰 3 THINGS TO CHECK OUT

AI Adoption Reaches a Tipping Point

• Gallup’s latest research shows a significant milestone: for the first time, 50% of U.S. employees are using AI at work—but only 13% use it daily. Most usage remains occasional, pointing to a gap between experimentation and widespread transformation.
• What does this mean for the design industry? UX Pioneer Jakob Nielsen believes there's opportunity in this gap. AI is boosting individual productivity, but only a small share of organizations have redesigned workflows end-to-end. "We need people like you, Dear Reader, to help companies redesign for AI."
• If you want to your team to go from casual AI use to real impact, consider Designlab’s AI training for design teams. Together, you'll turn AI experimentation into shared workflows across research, ideation, and prototyping—while maintaining strong design judgment.

Product Design in 2026: The Beginning of a More Influential Era

• Product Design Manager Kike Peña argues that long-standing walls limiting design influence—like separation from business, engineering, and decision-making—are finally breaking down. Designers are no longer confined to execution; they’re stepping into more proactive, strategic roles across the entire product lifecycle.
• The biggest shift? Designers now have access to tools that close the gap between idea and execution, including code. This expands their influence beyond mockups into building, validating, and shipping real products—bringing design closer to business impact than ever before.
• "Deliver complete tools and services, not just mockups; that’s the new design destiny."

What Can Junior Designers Do to Compete with AI?

• Alex Bec, co-founder of It’s Nice That, pushes back on a common fear: that AI will replace entry-level designers. While execution-level tasks are changing, he argues that junior talent remains essential, bringing fresh perspective, ideas, and context that organizations need to evolve.
• For early-career designers, Bec emphasizes the need for deep curiosity with new tools alongside core human strengths like communication, storytelling, and critical thinking. The designers who grow fastest will be the ones who experiment, adapt, and stay grounded in real-world experience.
• “Balance your own personal (dare I say human) development with the technology.”

💜 MENTOR SPOTLIGHT

With over 20 years in the design industry, Diana Martinez has built a career spanning visual design, UX, and art direction, working with brands like Microsoft, Xbox, Disney, Universal Music Group, and the NBA. Today, she brings that experience into her role as a UX Academy Foundations and UX Academy mentor at Designlab, where she’s found a new rhythm focused on teaching, reflection, and helping emerging designers grow.

Diana’s approach to mentoring is shaped by her own journey through burnout and reconnecting with what matters. After years of moving at full speed, she now emphasizes a more intentional way of working—encouraging students to slow down, think deeply, and focus on clarity. “Design isn’t just about speed or output, it’s about clarity, presence, and intention.”

What she loves most is watching students go from uncertainty to producing thoughtful, confident work in just a few months. Her advice to new designers: trust the process, pay attention to the details, and don’t let fear hold you back. “Do one hard thing every day. That’s where real progress lives.”

💡 INTERESTING STUFF...

• The “No AI Used” Counter Culture
• Finding Creative Inspiration in Everyday Life
• Using AI Product Design to Empower Human Creativity
• What To Do 30/60/90 Days After Launching a Product

One day you will wake up and there won't be any more time to do the things you've always wanted. Do it now. — Paulo Coelho, author and activist

🧪 FROM THE LAB

Learn More About Advanced Figma

The next cohort of Advanced Figma launches in one week. Our highest rated course, Advanced Figma is perfect for working designers who want to build more scalable systems and collaborate more effectively with developers. From auto layout to components and design systems, you’ll become the Figma pro you've always wanted to be.

To learn more, join our live webinar and Q&A session on Monday, 5/4, at 12pm ET. Ready to grab a spot in the cohort? Enroll here.

Vibe Coding Camp Launches Soon

The second cohort of Vibe Coding Camp starts May 9th. In case you missed our announcement last week, we’ve updated the program to reflect the latest AI coding tools being used. Now centered around Claude Code (Desktop & CLI) and a modern AI stack, the course is more hands-on and relevant than ever.

You’ll learn how to turn Figma designs into working code, build real features with APIs, databases, and authentication, and go from prompt → GitHub → deployed app on Vercel. By the end, you won’t just prototype—you’ll ship a functional product.

Join our live info session on Tuesday, 5/5, at 12pm ET for more details, or reserve your seat in the cohort now.