I saw a post from Farhan Thawar yesterday. We worked together at Shopify. We weren’t close but I always respected how he thought about tech and teams. His post stuck with me. Not because it said something new, but because it said it clearly.

The world isn’t binary.

He was talking about how Shopify is remote, but not 100 percent remote. How they’re going all in on AI, but not 100 percent AI. And it hit home. Because that’s exactly how I’ve been thinking and working too.

When I left traditional tooling behind and started building with AI tools like Cursor, I didn’t say, “I’ll never touch another line of code myself.” I said, “Let’s see how far this can go. Let’s see what changes when you have the help.”

It’s the same for design.

When I commented on that thread, I said, “This can work for all roles.” And I meant it.

AI doesn’t replace designers. It supports them. It reduces friction. It removes the grunt work so you can focus on judgment, ideas and intent. That’s where the value lives.

The problem is when people chase 100 percent. Fully automated. Fully AI. No input needed. It sounds good until you’re knee deep in edge cases and exceptions and nuance. It’ll likely never have that amount of coverage.

This whole thing works better when you’re in the loop. When you know when to take over and when to hand off. When you see a line of code you can fix, fix it. When you have a complex interaction you can test live in the browser, do it. Don’t prompt your way around the work. Use AI to get to the work that matters faster.

This has been my approach building and launching products. It’s not magic or hands off. It’s messy, iterative and fully human. The AI helps. It speeds things up. It’s a solid teammate but I’m still at the wheel.

If you’re in design or any other role, and you’re hesitating because you think AI means giving something up, don’t. You’re not being replaced. You’re being equipped. And it’s on you to figure out how to use that.

So no, it’s not 100 percent. It’s not supposed to be.

It’s just better than it was. And that’s enough.

So much “urgh” has been removed by simply having AI tooling at hand.