Connection between AI and product design - Potentials and critical issues in the text-to-image software-assisted design experience

The contribution aims to explore the relationships, potentials and limitations of integrating Artificial Intelligence in the design process through a design experience that tests the innovative potential of text-to-image software in product ideation, to reflect on the redefinition of the designer’s role in this rapidly and continuously changing scenario. The case study presented experiments with a design process in which the ideation phase is supported by AI and in particular by text-to-image software, which allows textual descriptions to be translated into visual representations, generating highly detailed images and offering new creative possibilities. The scenario sketched out defines an area in which the role of the designer and human creativities proves irreplaceable, suggesting that there is a growing need for a process of integration and collaboration with AI technologies, and as a result, the skills required in the future designers are being transformed and extended.