Don't learn AI, learn to work in code

If you want to get more out of AI as a product designer, don't focus on learning AI tools. Learn how to work in code.

AI isn't good at design. But it's great at writing code, very quickly. Which is why the product designers getting value from AI have all learned the same thing: how to work in code and collaborate with engineers.

If this is you, you're probably maintaining design systems in code, implementing your own designs, and working with engineers to polish features. You also probably won't shut up about this new way of working.

If this isn't you, you're probably wondering why everyone won't shut up about AI, because honestly it hasn't been that helpful to you. And you might be quietly wondering if you're going to have to learn to code.

I think "learn to code" is the wrong way to put it. It makes the whole thing sound more intimidating than it is. You don't need to pass an engineering interview to work effectively in code. You just need to understand how software works and gets built.

Things like how your design system is built and used (the version in code, not Figma), how an app knows what data or components to show a user, how a frontend talks to a backend, what frameworks and libraries your team uses and why they chose them.

You'll also need to learn how to collaborate in code: how to use Git, how to open a pull request and make it easy to review, how to test features, how releases and deploys happen.

There's a real learning curve here, but it doesn't require becoming an engineer. It just requires becoming literate in the material your product is actually built in. Once you understand it, AI stops being a toy that spits out throwaway prototypes and becomes a tool you use to work directly on the features you ship to customers.

The best part is that you can learn all of it by doing and asking questions. Have an engineer walk you through their workflow. Have an AI agent build something for you, and ask it "why" every single time it makes a change.

And if this whole AI thing doesn't pan out? What you've learned will make you a more empathetic collaborator and a more well-rounded designer anyway.