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Articles · AI Design

Last week, AI design tools moved toward less luck

Six AI and design stories from September 30 to October 6, on one page. The whole store, the rules, what to edit, the order of shots: what was left to luck is turning into something people decide. With numbers on how much designers use AI.

· 4 min read

Translated from the Korean original. Read in Korean

Over the past week I posted one piece a day on AI and design: a store editor, a design rules file, two image models, a 3D printing tool, ChatGPT ads and a video model. On their own they look unrelated. Side by side, one thing stood out.

Where we used to hand everything to AI and wait for the result, people can now decide for themselves.

First, a disclaimer. This is a roundup of the past week's articles. Details and sources for each story are in the individual pieces. I'll also note that I'm building this site with Claude Code, since Claude appears in the numbers below.

Six stories on one page

Six stories from last week, and what each one lets people decide.
Six stories from last week, and what each one lets people decide.

Here they are again, briefly.

  • Shopify Canvas (Oct 1). Every page of a store laid out at once; click to edit, or tell the AI. From an editor that opens one page at a time to seeing the whole.
  • DESIGN.md (Oct 2). Colors, type and what not to do, written in one file for AI. I also confirmed that when rules are blank, AI fills them in on its own.
  • Ideogram 4.5 and FLUX 3 Image (Sep 30, Oct 2). Only the chosen spot changes; the rest stays. FLUX 3 sets layout with boxes first.
  • InstructMesh (Oct 1). 80% of AI-made 3D models can't be used if printed as is. Pick the flawed part and fix it in words.
  • ChatGPT image ads (Oct 5). An ad appears while your image is drawn. A new placement, and a spot where ads can slip into your references.
  • Kling 4.0 (Sep 28 onward). Ten keyframes instead of a first and last frame. You hand AI video a storyboard.

The ads story is a little different. The other five are about more things designers can decide; ads are about more places designers will make work for. Still, the direction is the same. Inside the screens where AI works, there are more places a person's hand can reach.

How much do designers use AI?

The numbers explain why this is happening now. The AI in Design Report 2026, published in May, surveyed more than 900 designers in over 60 countries.

Designers and AI, one year on. Weekly use rose from 54% to 91%.
Designers and AI, one year on. Weekly use rose from 54% to 91%.

In one year, designers using AI weekly went from 54% to 91%. 75% use it daily. The average number of AI tools in regular use rose from 3 to 7, and half of designers said they've shipped AI-generated code to production.

According to write-ups of the report, designers' biggest complaint was inconsistent output quality. Quality was also what decided whether a tool stayed in their workflow.

Put those two together and you can see why last week's stories went the way they did. Almost every designer uses AI now. The question left isn't "should I use it?" but "can I trust it?" So tools are putting their effort less into more astonishing results and more into results that drift less and come out the way a person decided.

What's left for designers

Wherever luck shrinks, something appears for a person to decide.

New handleWhat the designer decides
The whole store on one surfaceWhich rules must hold on every page
A rules fileThe values for color and type, and why
Editing only the chosen spotWhat to change and what to protect
Box layoutWhat goes where, and how big
Fixing the flawed partWhether the object can actually be used
Ten keyframesHow to split the scene, and what shows at which second

Read the right-hand column again and there's nothing new in it. Layout, rules, composition, usability, storyboards. It's what designers have always done. As AI takes work off our hands, the places that need judgment stand out more clearly.

One thing to try this week

You don't need to try a whole week's worth at once. Pick the one closest to what you do now.

  1. If you build web or apps. Write a DESIGN.md with five colors, three type sizes and three things not to do.
  2. If you make image drafts. Edit the same image five times, then stack it on the original in Photoshop's Difference mode. The method is in the editing article.
  3. If you make video. Generate 15 seconds with the video AI you use now and mark the moments that go off course. When Kling 4.0 arrives, those are where keyframes go.

AI tools by use case are collected under AI design tools.

Sources: this site's articles from Oct 1–6 (see sources under each), AI in Design Report 2026, Designer Fund, Foundation Capital.

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