🤖 Exploring AI Tools for Design (A Human Take)
Discover 21 AI design tools that simplify workflows, boost creativity, and help designers prototype, code, and visualize ideas faster.
There’s a growing list of AI tools available that promise to make design easier, smarter, or at least faster. I’ve been digging into quite a few of them lately—some are genuinely useful, while others feel more like experiments in progress.
Here’s a rundown of tools I’ve come across, along with a few thoughts on how they might fit into your workflow (or maybe even change it altogether).
RunwayML is like the bridge between designers and machine learning—especially if you don't code. It provides access to creative ML models through a clean interface. I tried it once to generate background animations, and the results were oddly mesmerizing.
Key Features - Apply AI models to videos/images without coding, Real-time video editing using AI, Style transfer and motion tracking.Then there’s DALL·E, which probably needs no introduction at this point. It turns text into images. Wildly imaginative, occasionally chaotic—but when it works, it really works. I’ve used it for early-stage visual brainstorming.
Key Features - Generate images from text prompts, Inpaint and edit generated visuals, Style and content mixing for creativity.Sketch2Code takes your napkin wireframes (okay, maybe scanned paper or whiteboard shots) and converts them into HTML. It’s far from perfect, but helpful when you want a quick structure without opening a blank Figma file.
Key Features - Convert hand-drawn wireframes to HTML, Recognize and structure UI components, and Speed up prototype-to-code flow.Lobe is Microsoft’s take on visual AI building. Think of it as training your ML model without having to touch Python. It’s surprisingly intuitive and may be helpful if you’re designing products with intelligent behaviors.
Key Features - Train ML models visually, No-code AI pipeline creation, and Model export for apps and devices.Uizard feels like it was made for the impatient designer. Sketch out an interface and boom—it gives you clickable mockups and even a bit of frontend code. I can see it helping with client prototypes that need to look more polished than just scribbles.
Key Features - Turn sketches into UI designs, Convert screenshots to editable UI, and Generate frontend code from mockups.Craftwork leans more toward complete UI kits and animations, with AI making it easier to adapt layouts. I haven’t used it heavily yet, but it's polished.
Key Features - Responsive layout generator, AI-powered animation presets, and Custom UI templates via AI.Fontjoy is a quiet little gem. Need font pairings that don’t scream 2010? Let the AI generate combinations until something clicks. It's simple but surprisingly effective.
Key Features - Smart font pairing suggestions, Style harmony prediction, and Preview real-time combinations.Colormind is another tool I keep bookmarked. It’s a color palette generator, but with a bit of “taste.” Trained on actual design data, it usually gives better results than purely random tools.
Key Features - AI-generated color palettes, Learn from design trends, and Theme-specific palette suggestions.Concepts is a sketching app at heart, but it comes with some AI-powered enhancements for designers who like to draw freely, especially on tablets.
Key Features - AI-assisted precision sketching, Gesture recognition tools, and Custom brush intelligence.Adobe Sensei isn’t a tool so much as a brain behind the scenes in Adobe’s ecosystem. It powers features such as auto-tagging, smart cropping, and layout suggestions. You might not notice it, but you’ve probably used it already.
Key Features - Smart object selection & masking, Content-aware fill & layout, and Automated tagging and asset search.Landbot (landbot.io) lets you build chatbots visually. It's not strictly a design tool, but for UX designers working on conversation flows, it’s handy, and AI-driven logic makes it feel smarter than your average bot builder.
Key Features - Build no-code AI chatbots, Conversational logic training, and Custom behavior based on user input.Picular markets itself as Google for colors. Type in a word, get a palette. It’s weirdly fun. Try typing “fog” or “espresso” and see what suggestions come up.
Key Features - Color from keyword search, Visual color moodboards, and Keyword-based theme extraction.EazyDraw is more of a classic vector tool, but it quietly incorporates AI-assisted features for snapping, aligning, and smoothing paths. It feels a bit old-school but dependable.
Key Features - AI-guided snapping & alignments, Curve auto-smoothing, and Smart shape fitting.Vectary brings AI-powered 3D design to the browser. It’s not Blender, but for quick 3D UI or product mockups, it's more than enough—and you don’t need a beefy laptop to run it.
Key Features - 3D object auto-generation, Template-based 3D modeling, and Smart scene composition.GANPaint Studio (ganpaint.io) is an odd but fascinating one. You "paint" using semantic brushes—like adding a tree or window—and the AI generates photorealistic details. It’s a creative playground, even if it’s a bit niche.
Key Features - Paint features with semantic brush, Real-time GAN-based edits, and Scene component.Humaaans by Pablo Stanley is a favorite in the design world, and while it’s not pure AI, there’s some logic behind the customization engine that lets you remix characters effortlessly.
Key Features - Customize illustrated characters, Randomize styles using AI logic, and AI-based pose and outfit generation.Deep Art Effects specializes in neural style transfer. Upload a photo, pick a style, and it outputs an AI-powered painting. I’ve used it just for fun, but maybe there’s also branding potential there.
Key Features - Style transfer from artwork, Photo to painting transformation, and Preserve content with artistic overlay.Remove.bg is remarkably effective at what it does—removing backgrounds. Perfect for quick turnarounds when you're working on marketing assets or product visuals.
Key Features - Automatic background removal, Smart edge detection, and Batch processing using AI.Project Muze was a Google experiment exploring how AI could influence fashion design. It’s more artistic than practical, but worth a look if you're curious.
Key Features - Generate fashion design from user data, and Style recommendation based on mood, AI trend-based visual composition.Let’s Enhance improves image quality with upscaling and noise reduction. Handy when your client sends you a logo that looks like it came from a 2003 PowerPoint slide.
Key Features - AI-based image upscaling, Noise/artifact removal, and Detail enhancement.Looka, formerly Logojoy, specializes in generating logos using AI. You enter your preferences, and it provides you with a few dozen (sometimes too many) options. Great for idea starters, even if you still want to polish it afterward.
Key Features - Logo generation based on input, AI branding suggestions, and Layout/style adaptability.Some of these tools are game-changers. Others? Well, they’re great for shortcuts or inspiration.
Either way, AI is carving out a new kind of design workflow—one that’s fast, somewhat unpredictable, and surprisingly collaborative. And honestly, it’s fun to watch where it goes next.
💡 Need Help Navigating AI in Design?
Hi, I’m Prince Pal — a Product UI/UX Designer with 18+ years of experience helping startups and SaaS businesses turn complex ideas into intuitive digital products.
Whether you’re exploring AI-powered workflows or redesigning your product for speed, clarity, and scale — I’d love to help.
👉 Let’s collaborate on your next design challenge.
Or just drop a hello — always up for a conversation about good design.