For the past two years, the Design Business Council has been researching how AI is changing the commercial landscape for design businesses. We’ve spoken with agency owners, analysed business models, examined pricing strategies, and explored how AI is reshaping the way clients buy design.
One message has become increasingly clear.
AI won’t commoditise design businesses.
It’ll commoditise some of the services design businesses have built their business models around.
It’s happened before
Throughout history, every major technological shift has reduced the value of one activity while increasing the value of another. Desktop publishing reduced the value of typesetting but elevated communication design. Digital photography reduced the value of film processing but increased the scope of image creation, editing and distribution. AI is following the same pattern with design.
It’s making the production of images, layouts, copy and other creative assets faster, cheaper and more accessible. Those services are becoming increasingly difficult to differentiate.
Yet our research suggests the services clients value have not been impacted by AI. They still need help understanding their customers, identifying opportunities, positioning their businesses, building stronger brands and making better strategic decisions. All the activities needing hands-on human intelligence. This is apparent when we define design as the discipline of creating measurable economic, social and contextual impact through research, strategy and implementation.
In other words, AI isn’t replacing the need for design; it’s exposing the difference between agencies that primarily produce deliverables (outputs) and those who create business impact through discovery, research and strategy (outcomes).
The question every design business owner should now be asking isn’t, “Will AI replace us?” If clients think AI can produce most of what we sell today, what business are we really in?
Here’s how you can approach this:
Monday morning action
Call your team together for one hour.
Draw two columns on a whiteboard.
Left
Everything clients currently pay us for.
For example:
Logo
Website
Packaging
Annual report
Campaign
Etc
Right
Can AI do 80% of this?
Yes
No
Partly
Now ask these questions:
What services are not done well by AI?
How do we position ourselves for those?
If AI can do this, why would a client still pay us?
How do we develop an AI strategy for our business?
What extra human centred services can we offer?
The next move is yours. Schedule the Monday morning meeting.
As always, happy to discuss further, just email Greg
Greg Branson
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