Jeroen van Heteren

I think our creative industry is moving towards a way of working where ideas can be explored, tested and brought to life much more quickly. AI is one of the biggest drivers of that change. What excites me most about AI is not necessarily that it makes us faster. It is that it makes it much easier to try things.

Traditionally, bringing an idea to life quickly becomes a discussion about priorities, budgets, development capacity and planning. That naturally means that a lot of ideas never get beyond a conversation or a Figma screen. With AI agents and bots, that is starting to change. We can take an idea, turn it into something tangible, test it, change it and try again with much less effort. A rough thought or even a voice note can become a working prototype surprisingly quickly.

For me, that brings some of the fun and creativity back into design. You don't have to be completely sure that an idea is worth pursuing before you start exploring it. You can simply make it, see what happens and learn from it.

I think this will also change the role of designers. Creating the actual output becomes less of the constraint. The more important skills become knowing what is worth exploring, asking the right questions, recognising what is good and understanding what people actually need.

So while AI will certainly make our industry more efficient, I think the more interesting change is that it can give us more freedom to experiment and be creative again.