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Artificial intelligence has evolved from being merely a tool into a system that enhances human judgement. By 2026, its impact will extend beyond automation to include a profound transformation of workflows, professional roles and creative ambition. In this new landscape, where execution becomes cheaper and faster, the real competitive advantage no longer lies in producing more, but in knowing what is worth creating.
The new centre of gravity no longer lies in the tool itself, but in the judgement of the person using it. AI is the new oil: every company has access to it, but that doesnât mean they all know what to do with it. What is really changing is the workflow â delivery times are being drastically reduced â and the way we engage with knowledge. Goodbye to isolated knowledge, to reliance on a single tool, to siloed roles. Roles are intertwining and jobs are evolving. A very illustrative example is Anthropic: its greatest productivity lever has been in software engineering, because development teams are able to produce significantly more in the same amount of time. The paradoxical effect is that this has led them to increase hiring in product, not reduce it. AI hasnât cut teams there; it has scaled ambition. It is also a shift in scale of thinking. In design, specifically, it should free us up to engage in more creative and strategic thinking. Critical thinking must be the fuel in a world where replicating a value proposition is worth nothing. If AI generates 30% or 80% of the execution, what sets one professional apart from another is no longer speed: it is judgement, the question they ask before executing.
There is a before and after, particularly in terms of speed. But AI is not yet a panacea, and pretending it is one of the most common mistakes in organisations. The area where it helps most today is vast: from research with automatic transcriptions and insights analysis to the generation of complete workflows. With good integration, you can turn that knowledge into user stories, diagrams, design proposals and even functional code, all in one go. However, there are clear limitations, the âfive Achillesâ heelsâ: Hallucinations. Models generate plausible text, not verified truth. Context window. Loss of coherence in long workflows. End-to-end reliability. Accuracy drops when scaling complex processes. Security. Vulnerabilities such as prompt injection. Human bottleneck. Supervision becomes the critical point.
There has been much talk about AI taking our jobs. What has really changed are the roles and the speed at which they evolve. The roles that are growing are those that combine: Strategic thinking and technical execution, Systems thinking, Ability to evaluate AI outputs, Skill in communicating data-driven decisions. At the same time, roles centred on repetitive tasks, dependent on a single tool or lacking real differentiation are disappearing or being scaled back. Furthermore, a new role is emerging: designers of systems that integrate AI, capable of defining workflows, monitoring and agent behaviour.
We have always been a cutting-edge company in technology, but being at the forefront does not mean moving at any speed in any direction. We are not yet operating under an AI-first model across all products, and that is not a weakness; it is a quality-driven decision. AI is not yet up to the task in certain contexts where the user experience leaves no room for error. The most important thing is that judgement never fails: human oversight is not a brake on innovation; it is its guarantee of quality. In an environment where almost everything can be automated, the value no longer lies in producing more, but in knowing what is worth producing.
There is no one-size-fits-all solution; every team is finding its own tech stack. Claude has established itself as a benchmark in workflows ranging from conversation to code generation, with integrations with Figma. Tools such as Cursor or GitHub Copilot are redefining technical and creative work. The Figma MCP ecosystem is changing the relationship between design and development: it is no longer a handover, but a two-way flow. In prototyping, solutions such as v0, Lovable or Bolt allow you to go from idea to product in minutes. And integrations with creative tools expand the scope of these workflows. The key is no longer the tool itself, but how it fits into the process.
Against this backdrop of accelerated transformation, the evolution of artificial intelligence in design reflects a broader shift: the need for businesses and citizens to access digital technologies in a simple, useful and strategic way. This approach ties in with TelefĂłnicaâs ambition to become the best gateway to innovation, driving more advanced services, strengthening competitiveness in Europe and contributing to a more robust technological ecosystem. In an environment where technology is advancing faster than ever, true leadership is not just about adopting new tools, but about integrating them with discernment, responsibility and a clear vision of real impact on people and society.