Is AI Friend or Foe to Creatives? Five Design AI Tools Worth Exploring.

As AI tools become increasingly embedded in how we work, many worry that it could replace human creativity. While these tools can now handle complex tasks, they still don’t match the depth of human thought. AI can mimic human creativity but lacks deep contextual reasoning, adaptability, and sentience. However, it’s clear that AI still has a lot to offer. It’s been shown to speed up our workflows by improving decision making, accelerating research, and automating routine tasks, but what if AI goes beyond speed and automation? When human imagination meets the precision of AI, the possibilities for innovation expand dramatically.  

When we invite AI into the way we think, design, and build, it can help break through creative blocks, elevate ideas, and unlock new directions in our creative process. With many powerful AI tools now freely available, more people than ever have the opportunity to bring bold ideas to life.  

Here’s how AI can strengthen—not replace—your creative spark. 

Shifting How We View AI  

AI’s role in creative work is evolving, and much of that evolution depends on how we choose to engage with it. When we stop thinking of AI as a tool that produces results and start thinking of it as something we can shape ideas with, a world of possibilities opens. AI isn’t truly intelligent and doesn’t create in the way humans do, but it can help us combine ideas in new ways and push past the usual paths we take, leading us to discoveries and solutions we might never have reached on our own.  

These ideas came through clearly at Config, Figma’s annual conference for designers, developers, and product thinkers at the start of May. In his talk Beyond Agents, Joel Lewenstein from Anthropic challenged his audience to think beyond viewing AI tools as “assistants,” “co-pilots,” and “agents.” These metaphors limit AI to a support role, where it’s there to answer one-off questions and speed up your workflow, but what if it is capable of so much more? How we talk about AI matters, especially if we want to take it from assistant to creative collaborator. And by shifting how we interact with AI, we can expand its role and make it a more integrated part of our teams. 

Joel proposes we begin to view AI as a partner, something that learns with us, helps shape our ideas, and grows with us over time. Joel likened this to the Lennon-McCartney dynamic: mutual growth, creative tension, and bigger ideas than either could reach alone. That’s what AI can offer when integrated intentionally into your workflow. 

This theme was also echoed in other sessions. Lane Shackleton and Mihika Kapoor encouraged designers to stop treating AI like a serious automation tool and treat it like a creative collaborator instead. We should experiment alongside AI and bounce ideas off it, not just assign questions to answer and tasks to do. This shift in mindset opens new possibilities for play, exploration, and unexpected insights when innovating solutions for complex problems. 

AI Makes Faster Teams with Better Ideas 

When AI becomes a part of the creative process, ideas move faster, and the gap between concept and testable prototype is smaller. Even more, AI is making software development more accessible. Prompt-based no-code tools let less technical team members turn ideas into working prototypes without ever having to touch a single line of code.  

This shift empowers a broader range of voices within teams to actively contribute to building and iterating on solutions. Designers can experiment directly with functionality, and stakeholders can see tangible results sooner. The result is a more collaborative, inclusive workflow that breaks down traditional barriers between roles. With AI, innovation cycles shorten, teams adapt more quickly, and products better reflect diverse perspectives and real user needs.  

Redefining the Designer’s Role 

These shifts mean a lot for creatives, especially those who are newly entering their field. The roles of entry and mid-level designers are moving away from tool mastery and pixel pushing towards becoming co-creators with AI. Designers are expected to think critically and shape early AI-generated ideas into thoughtful, human-centered solutions.  

AI is moving the focus away from repetitive, productive work and toward areas where human skills truly take solutions to the next level, such as uncovering the right problems to solve, conducting thorough UX research, and designing thoughtful micro-interactions.  

The role of designers is expanding, not shrinking, and by leaning into the parts of the process where human insight matters most, we can shape better, more thoughtful solutions.  

Tools Worth Exploring For AI-Driven Design 

Ready to bring AI into your design process? Here are a few tools worth checking out: 

• Figma Make: Uses AI to generate components and ideas directly in Figma (Currently in Beta) 

• Loveable: AI-powered app builder that simplifies the development process by allowing users to create applications using natural language prompts 

• Relume: No-code website builder that helps you quickly create layouts and copy from prompts 

• Bolt: AI development platform that enables users to prompt, run, edit, and deploy full-stack web applications directly within the browser 

• Replit: Development tool that’s accessible for non-engineers to experiment with code and prototypes 
  

Designing What’s Next 

What’s clear is that the design community is approaching AI with a strong sense of curiosity. Teams are becoming inspired to create smarter, more thoughtful work, because AI isn’t replacing creativity; it’s unlocking new creative possibilities. The tools are available. Now, the challenge is deciding how we choose to use them. 

Explore how MetroStar is using AI to push the mission further and the innovation behind our next solutions at metrostar.com/innovation-lab