Industry leaders in the design sector have said professional designers should not feel "threatened" by the rise of generative AI, arguing the technology is more likely to be used as a supportive tool than as a replacement for skilled staff. The reassurance comes amid growing public anxiety about AI-driven job losses, with figures from the Design Council and the Design Business Council insisting that human skill, experience and empathy remain irreplaceable, even as firms across design, film production and manufacturing rapidly adopt AI tools.

The Design Council's Design Economy 2026 report found the design sector grew 40% between 2019 and the end of 2023, outpacing the wider economy's 23% growth and overtaking the retail industry in size, with 2.27 million design jobs supported across construction, services and manufacturing and a 15% employment rise between 2020 and 2025. While these figures largely predate the widespread use of tools like ChatGPT and Claude, leaders noted that demand for design skills has held up so far. They compared the shift to the earlier disruption caused by computer-aided design software, and pointed to separate research showing 57% of the public expect AI to cause widespread unemployment, alongside reports of freelancers already picking up "soulless" work correcting AI-generated errors.