The last couple of years have been really fun in the product design and software space. On its surface the product design industry can appear very different in 2026 compared to, say, 10 years ago. Yet, it's very much the same at its core as it always has been.
Sure, production of static mockups is not a thing anymore. Gone are the days of designers expected to just produce a Figma link. With LLMs as a tool, there is zero reason for designers to not write code, experiment, and push to production. However, that doesn't mean that's the only layer left.
The two design layers
The two distinct layers used for creating something are still canvas and code. The auxiliary agent layer is complimentary to both (for example: the newly released Figma agent working alongside Claude).
I don't believe that design by prompting will ever replace the traditional, canvas-based method. The two approaches, however, work great with each other, allowing to start with a prompt, and continue on canvas, then expand into code. However, I don't think either will be ever be self-sufficient, even though a lot of tools are promising to solve both in one.
Canvas is super valuable for a quick and dirty exploration. I don't think it will ever go away, because you can never reach the same level of experimentation with another method.
At the same time, I find myself using Figma much less than I used to. It's just so much easier to start a wireframing session in Claude, and only then transition to high-fidelity for specific moments. There's just no point in drawing out every pixel.
The bottleneck
With the speed of shipping accelerating, the bottleneck mostly becomes figuring out the small details, as well as deciding what to build. That's where the traditional product management hat comes in. As a designer, you have to have strong product sense, otherwise you will get buried in a pile of decisions that need to be made.
Blurred lines
In general, the lines between engineering, product management, and design are much more blurred now. However, it doesn't mean that either role is about to be extinct. At the end of the day, it's all about jobs to be done. The reality is that there's just much more overlap now between these three disciplines. Best designers have always had a deep understanding of the user problems, as well as the tech stack to translate the solutions to. Now, designers finally have the ability to shape the end product themselves. There's no more need to bother an engineer to adjust some padding on a specific element.
The future of design has never been more exciting—if you're willing to embrace it. There's more work than ever to be done, especially if you consider yourself more of a generalist/builder.