Tanvi Pisal, a 29-year-old product designer in the San Francisco Bay Area, began fearing AI displacement long before her startup laid her off in the fall of 2025. The termination email confirmed her suspicions: the cuts were tied directly to the company's rapid AI adoption. Roles that once required entire design teams were being compressed into AI-assisted workflows handled by far fewer people.
Rather than retreat or change fields, Pisal leaned in. She knew the design industry was being reshaped by generative AI tools — tools that could produce mockups, iterate on layouts, and generate variations far faster than any human designer working alone. But she also knew that AI still needed human judgment, taste, and strategic thinking to produce truly good work.
Even after landing a contract role at a Big Tech firm, she dedicates up to 15 hours a week to experimenting with AI tools and attending workshops. She explores new design AI platforms, tests prompt engineering techniques, and studies how AI is changing the designer's role from creator to curator and director.
Her approach is proactive rather than defensive. She believes that designers who understand how to leverage AI effectively will be the ones who survive — and thrive — in the new landscape. The alternative, she fears, is being left behind as the industry moves forward without you.
"I don't want to be in a position a few years from now where I realize the industry moved forward and I didn't make the effort to keep learning alongside it," Pisal said. Her strategy reflects a growing trend among knowledge workers: instead of fighting the AI wave, learning to surf it.