How Will Artificial Intelligence Impact the Roles, Skills, and Design Processes of UX Professionals in the Next 5 Years?

Artificial intelligence (AI) is changing the way we think about user experience (UX) design. This thesis explores how AI could impact the roles, skills, and design processes of UX professionals over the next five years. The research conducted consists of a mixed-methods approach, combining an online survey administered through Qualtrics to 50 survey respondents and a case study, which included individually interviewing 3 UX professionals over Zoom, to gather data and personal insights. The results show that while AI has the power and potential to make some parts of UX work faster, like research analysis, prototyping, and automating redundant tasks, it also brings challenges, especially around keeping designs truly human-centered and ethical. Some ethical concerns that emerged were the bias in the data that the AI systems are trained on, as well as concerns about privacy and transparency. As AI continues to rapidly grow and advance, it is critical that UX professionals be flexible, develop stronger communication skills, and learn how to work with AI without losing the human touch. This study highlights the importance of finding the right balance between using technology to innovate and ensuring that we do not lose sight of what really matters which is creating experiences that help people, not just impress them.