Artificial Intelligence in Visual Design: Digital Age Advancements Transform Both Creative Processes and User Experiences Through AI Integration

Abstract

The integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) into visual design represents a paradigm shift, fundamentally altering creative workflows, expanding capabilities and redefining human-AI collaboration. This review traces AI’s evolution in visual design from early computational tools to modern generative systems such as GANs, transformers and diffusion models and examines its transformative impact across disciplines (graphic design, user experience, architecture, fashion, etc.). AI augments human creativity by accelerating ideation, automating repetitive tasks, enabling hyper-personalization, and facilitating novel co-creation forms. However, this integration raises critical ethical concerns, including intellectual property ambiguity, embedded biases, cultural homogenization, environmental costs, and job displacement anxiety. While AI democratizes design access and enhances efficiency, limitations in creative judgment, originality, and contextual understanding persist. The future demands human-centered frameworks that prioritize ethical AI literacy, equitable collaboration and regulatory clarity to harness AI’s potential while preserving human agency and cultural diversity in creative practice. This study aims to direct future research by examining the existing academic literature to determine how user experience design has changed with the arrival of AI in recent years, as well as the potential and difficulties it presents.