Beyond the hype: reflections on my talk at Mistral AI’s Paris
Last week, I had the chance to speak at the Mistral AI office in Paris for a special edition of the World Class Designers event, co-hosted with Design Club. Sharing the stage with Zach Krasner, Head of Design at Mistral, was both an honor and a privilege. The room was packed with energy—young designers, developers, founders, and product people all eager to dig into what’s next for design.
Written by Francois
My talk, titled “Beyond the Hype of AI Design and Vibe Coding: What Will Remain for Us Designers”, was a reaction to the growing noise in our field. With AI tools automating more tasks and “vibe coding” pushing low-effort aesthetics at scale, it’s tempting to believe design is being reduced to prompts and presets. But I argued that while surface-level output is getting easier, taste, context, and systems thinking still can’t be automated.
Here are some of the core ideas I shared:
- AI is making us faster, but not necessarily better. Drafting flows, layouts, even visual directions has never been this easy—but taste is still scarce. Tools can’t decide what should be done, only what can be.
- Design as a decision-making process, not output. AI doesn’t replace the hard part of design: prioritising trade-offs, aligning with business goals, and understanding people. Good design is still a strategy job.
- “Vibe coding” is fun, but it fades. We’re seeing lots of beautiful but shallow work. The designers who will stand out are the ones building systems, not just dribbles.
- The value is shifting to synthesis. Designers who can connect inputs from users, business, tech, and AI into coherent directions will win. Curation is design.
- There’s a shift in the design trend with a return to details and ambitious aesthetic, moving away from flat and minimalist design that dominated the past 10 years.
What made the event so great wasn’t just the presentation—it was the conversation that followed. I had meaningful chats with people who had only seen my work online before. Some questioned my views. Others added their own experiences with AI tools. But everyone seemed aligned on one thing: this is a strange, exciting moment for our field, and no one knows exactly where it’s going.
A big thanks to Guidione Machava and Paul Menant for organizing the event, and to everyone who came. Events like these remind me that the design community is still strong, still thoughtful, and still willing to ask the harder questions. That’s what will remain.
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