What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you think of artificial intelligence (AI)? Maybe it’s a customer service chatbot on an ecommerce site. Maybe it’s an image generator that produces pictures of people who look, well, a little inhuman. Maybe it’s ChatGPT helping you write that cover letter. Maybe it’s an accounting software your company uses to automate repetitive tasks. As varied as these AI tools are, they only scratch the surface of what today’s artificial intelligence can do.
AI product design can help bring real-life products—both digital and physical—to life. Here’s an overview of the burgeoning field of AI product design, plus a look at a few specific tools in today’s AI product design space.
What is AI product design?
Artificial intelligence (AI) product design is the integration of artificial intelligence into the product design process, from making prototypes to analyzing user feedback. Different types of AI software can assist in different tasks. For example, one AI tool could propose design concepts while another could test digital prototypes.
The integration of AI-powered tools into a human creative process like design might be a frightening prospect, but these product design AI algorithms are not replacing human designers. Rather, designers can consider integrating AI to help them make data-driven decisions, foregoing choices based on instinct or opinions.
For instance, by analyzing vast amounts of data such as human feedback on past designs, an AI product design tool can quickly assess customers’ design preferences and present a design team with options that reflect those customer preferences. The human team will still decide what design to pursue, but they’ll be equipped with data when they make their choice.
Ways AI is used in product design
- Idea generation
- Prototyping
- Product testing
- Enhancing user research
- Customized user experiences
- Content generation
Using AI, designers can optimize nearly all aspects of the product design process, from gleaning valuable insights from vast amounts of user data to conducting virtual prototype tests. Here are some ways AI product design is enabling designers to work more efficiently:
Idea generation
By analyzing vast amounts of data including market trends, user behavior, and competitor products, generative AI tools can suggest new concepts and generate ideas, allowing designers to quickly evaluate and refine new product designs. For example, you could input guidelines into a specialized product design AI tool and ask for specific prototype ideas, or you could ask a generalist tool like ChatGPT to provide broader product design inspiration. You could also ask an AI text tool to help you think of website copy ideas.
Prototyping
AI product design tools can quickly create a digital prototype for your idea. You can then edit this prototype yourself or share it with your team for iteration. These prototypes allow you to alter individual design elements before you start building your product, saving time across your entire product team.
Product testing
AI can simulate real-world usage scenarios, allowing designers to save time and reduce costs associated with building and testing physical prototypes. This virtual testing can provide valuable insights into potential design flaws and user pain points, and designers can then use this information to fine-tune their products.
Enhancing user research
AI can efficiently analyze large volumes of user feedback like survey answers and reviews and identify patterns and trends, saving product designers the time it takes to manually parse through this information. AI can also understand natural language (you can see this technology at work in AI-powered voice assistants, for example), meaning that AI tools can interpret qualitative feedback like comments. Product designers can then use this organized user behavior data to make informed decisions about their products.
Customized user experiences
By leveraging AI, product designers can use predictive analytics to make personalized iterations of the same product. Think about the music streaming platform Spotify, for example. The company offers an AI-powered playlist generator that analyzes each user’s listening activity to create playlists with personally tailored song choices. The software isn’t creating new product designs for every listener; instead, Spotify’s AI-powered playlist product uses AI to customize the same product.
Content generation
If you’re designing digital products like websites or mobile apps, you’ll want to make sure your written content resonates with your target audience. Creating punchy copy is tricky, and to make it even harder, you’ll want to make sure you maintain a consistent brand voice across all the different elements of your product. AI content design tools can help you generate, fine-tune, and translate text, helping you ensure you get your message across.
AI tools for product design
A host of AI tools can assist product designers in several ways. Whether you’re interested in leveraging AI to start your design process from scratch or a professional product designer looking to speed up your work, there are powerful tools to help you get started.
Adobe Sensei
Sensei is Adobe’s generative AI software. It’s integrated across Adobe's suite of products, and it can do a lot. Among its many functions, Sensei can give you user data insights and help you generate written content. It can also test your product, helping you understand the user experience and even conducting A/B testing.
Pricing: Included in Adobe Cloud subscription.
Uizard
Uizard is an AI-powered tool that converts ideas and wireframes (digital product sketches) into user experience (UX) and user interface (UI) designs. The tool helps designers go from an initial concept to an editable prototype in minutes, significantly reducing the time spent on early stage product design development. Say you’re drafting a new web design for your ecommerce site. Instead of holding multiple team meetings to discuss prospective site designs in theoretical terms, you can feed an idea into Uizard and receive a tangible prototype for your team to evaluate and edit. This can be a game changer for product designers facing tight deadlines.
Pricing: There’s a free plan with limited capabilities. Paid plans start at $19/month.
Framer AI
The website builder Framer offers an AI language tool that can translate your text for different audiences, helping you personalize your product for different users. The tool can also generate and polish your text, helping you create punchy copy that resonates with readers.
Pricing: There’s a free plan with limited capabilities. Paid plans start at $10/month.
AI product design FAQ
What are some AI product design tools?
Some well-regarded AI product design tools include Adobe Sensei, Uizard, and Framer. These tools help with tasks like prototyping, product testing, and generating written content.
Can you use AI to design a product?
Yes, you can use AI to design a product by utilizing the technology to help generate ideas, analyze user data, create prototypes, test products, and customize the user experience.
What is the AI that generates product ideas?
Many AI applications can generate product ideas, including Adobe Sensei, ChatGPT, and Google Gemini.
