New Year Predictions

2026 UI/UI & AI Trends

What is coming for creative pros next year

New Year is coming, and with it, new opportunities arise. As every year, let me make some predictions about what will play a key role for creative professionals in 2026.

Recap of 2025 predictions

Twelve months ago, I wrote about several things that I observed as new trends. Let’s check if they spread and impacted us:

1. Design process disrupted. It’s happening. As predicted, AI plays increasingly significant roles in our daily work. It helps us with initial research and summarizes meetings. It’s not yet ideal at creating UI, but it gets better every month, especially with prototyping. This will definitely continue next year.
2. Better times for job seekers. Slowly but steadily, things are improving. I see more and more offers on LinkedIn (though that may be biased), but statistics confirm the upward trend.
3. Small businesses will hire more AI than freelancers. I’ve attended several meetups this year, and unfortunately, I see a trend where graphic designers and illustrators who once had many offers from small businesses now struggle. With AI site builders, and other specialized tools, this will likely continue.