Galileo AI - Are UI/UX Designers a Thing of the Past?

Reminiscent of the technology used to power Open AI’s groundbreaking chatbot, ChatGPT, Galileo AI seeks to streamline the User Interface design process by enabling users to generate fully editable designs using prompt-based text input.

Available now for early access, this AI tool has been trained extensively, incorporating thousands of the finest examples in UI design to help users construct the UI that best serves their individual needs. And paired with Figma, a dynamic interface design tool, Galileo AI’s generated designs can even be edited as well, further increasing its scope and versatility within the UI/UX design space.

In other words: all you need to design your next big app is one good idea and a handful of choice words to – literally – bring it to life.

While this might spell good news for companies looking to start up a business on a budget, the implications of this emerging technology on the jobs of human UI/UX designers appear to be grim.

Will It Help Designers or Just Replace Them?

For now, there seems to be a pretty even split on the two realities this tech may bring.

On one hand, Galileo AI has the potential to become an essential component of a designer’s toolkit, supporting and streamlining the most time-consuming parts of the design process for new and seasoned UI designers alike. After all, one of the company’s primary objectives is to leave users with “more time for bigger impact,” allowing them to delegate more of that precious time and resources to design creative solutions in lieu of more “tedious tasks,” like developing UI patterns and minor visual adjustments.

Conversely, its convenience and ease of access could very well eliminate the need for human UI designers entirely, cutting the middleman between product ideation and launch if it gets sophisticated enough. And while the tech industry attempts to navigate its first major slump, the list of layoffs continues to grow, and those who are hesitant in adapting to this emerging technology might be at a significant disadvantage compared to designers who accept this new reality.

Others, like Designer and Developer for WebflowYoussef Sarhan, believe this technology does not have the capacity to encroach on the core elements of UI design, as humans still have to be the ones to answer the logistical questions on the design process that AI necessarily cannot.

Generative AI and Its Potential Limitations

Galileo AI is a form of generative AI – a type of artificial intelligence capable of generating content based on supplied data – and for all the advantages and opportunities for innovation this advanced tech may bring, it is also not without its deficiencies.

Firstly, the degree of quality produced by AI is far from perfect, and generated outputs may come with various errors that cannot be directly iterated upon like one typically could with traditional design software and techniques. Thus, designers have less direct control over how their products may turn out.

Furthermore, the training data sets these AI systems refer to are heavily determinant of the overall output they produce. This means that if the body of data used to teach these models are not plentiful as well as diverse, the output will inadvertently reflect any holes or bias present in that dataset. Much like the data used to power facial recognition technology, weak training data can result in undesirable outcomes that can, sometimes, do far more than just produce a bad product.

Although the future of AI technologies is looking bright, the years ahead appear uncertain for those working in the UI/UX Design space. Whether it becomes another weapon in a designer’s arsenal or turns into the ammunition that eliminates the need for them entirely, Galileo AI’s response to UI’s most pressing problems is one to keep a watchful eye for.