AI-pilled bosses and clients are turning designers into ‘pixel pushers’

Emily Foran, a creative director and graphic designer, has not been asked by clients to come up with an original idea from scratch in a year. “That’s kind of killing my soul,” Foran says. “I’m having clients, new and existing, send me crap they had Claude or ChatGPT mock up for them, and then ask me to either clean it up or straight up work with it. And I hate that. It’s such an insult.” These days, she feels more like a “pixel pusher” than a creative, a concern echoed by many of her peers. Foran, the president of the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) Maine, is one of more than a dozen graphic designers Fast Company interviewed who say that generative artificial intelligence has completely changed their relationship with their bosses, clients, and work itself over the past 18 months. Clients have asked for lower rates, because they claim they’re now the ones coming up with images alongside an AI assist. Some designers have been laid off and explicitly told that AI would replace them. Others are only getting guidance from their bosses that amounts to “Ask ChatGPT.” Many still have jobs, yet feel like their work and perspective are undervalued or seen as replaceable. Foran h…