*tl;dr *AI isn’t coming for your job—it’s coming for the version of your job that hasn’t evolved. The people who thrive will wield AI to stretch beyond a single specialty and stitch together value in unexpected ways.


1 Why the “single-lane” career is fading

Early in my career I wore tidy labels—designer, then front-end dev, then UX leader. That worked when tooling friction kept each craft in its silo.
Today:

Result: what used to be an expensive hand-off chain is now a solo flight with AI riding shotgun.


2 Four hats, one (busy) week

The outputs below all happened in small pockets of time during the same week. AI handled the grunt work; I played editor-in-chief.

2.1 Logo exploration

AI-assisted logo sheet

Prompt: “Generate abstract logomarks for a real-estate market-comparison app called ‘SmartComps’; style: bold, geometric.”

I iterated on the best mark in Figma, refined curves, and exported variants. Hands-on time: ≈ 25 min.

2.2 Landing-page draft

AI-generated landing page

Workflow:

  1. Lovable to spark layout & copy ideas.
  2. Cursor to translate the best concept into React/Tailwind code.
  3. Quick polish pass for brand tone, then push to a preview branch.

Design and front-end boxes checked in under an hour.

2.3 Marketing-idea factory

List of AI-generated content ideas

My n8n flow:

  1. Cron trigger (Monday 08:00)
  2. Postgres SELECT to avoid duplicates
  3. OpenAI: “Give me 10 *new** social posts for BoxBoard…”*
  4. Insert rows back into marketing_ideas
  5. Slack DM the top idea to me

Five nodes = one less weekly chore.

2.4 Code-enhancement sprint

Code diff with AI suggestions

Cursor.ai nudged me through test stubs, edge-case handling, and a small refactor—more output, less keyboard time.


3 Patterns I’m leaning on

Pattern Why it works
Prompt → Draft → Human polish AI gets ~80 %; I inject taste & domain nuance.
One source of truth (Postgres) Multiple “agents” read/write without spreadsheet chaos.
Componentized thinking Each task is a Lego brick; future flows can chain them.

4 From specialist to “Swiss-army-knife” teammate

I’m not abandoning UX leadership; I’m augmenting it. The evolving baseline stack:

Companies will prize people who glide across that spectrum—handoff overhead is now effectively free.


5 Try it yourself

  1. Pick a dormant skill you haven’t touched in years.
  2. Draft a micro-project that takes < 1 hr with AI help.
  3. Ship—even if it’s rough.
  4. Reflect: What felt slow? Automate that next.

Where could you add value once the boilerplate melts away?
Share a win (or face-plant) in the comments—let’s trade notes. 🚀


Thanks for reading—now go make something weird (with a little help from the machines).