Most "AI for design" tools solve problems nobody had. The few that earn a permanent place in the workflow do one narrow thing extremely well — usually ideation breadth or repetitive handoff work.
Ideation tools
AI tools can generate dozens of variations in seconds, accelerating the exploration phase
Human judgment still determines which concepts move forward
AI works best as a collaborator, not a replacement
The most valuable AI design tools at the moment are the ones that handle repetitive handoff work: generating spacing tokens, ensuring contrast compliance, and checking design consistency across screens.
