Research on Employment Structure and Skill Transfer of Design Students in the Context of Generative AI: An Empirical Study Based on Job Postings and Curriculum Analysis

Abstract

Recent years, Generative Artificial Intelligence (GAI), represented by ChatGPT, Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, and Adobe Firefly, has rapidly permeated the design industry, triggering significant process restructuring in visual production, concept exploration, and content generation. Concurrently, employment anxiety among design students has intensified, with questions such as "Will AI replace designers?" and "Is the design major losing its value?" becoming frequent topics in higher education pedagogy and public discourse. Grounded in the structural changes of the labor market and the evolutionary trends of job roles within the design industry, this paper analyzes the mechanisms through which GAI impacts the employment and career development of design students. The analysis synthesizes data from authoritative reports by the World Economic Forum (WEF), McKinsey Global Institute, IBM, and Adobe.

The study posits that GAI is accelerating the differentiation of job roles and the upward shift of competency structures within the design industry. While demand for traditional roles centered on execution-based visual production shows a contraction trend, there is a sustained growth in demand for interdisciplinary design talent equipped with strategic capabilities, systems thinking, user research competence, and cross-disciplinary collaboration skills. Furthermore, this paper argues that the narrative of "AI destroying the future" is more accurately characterized as an anxiety narrative driven by skills mismatch and educational lag, rather than a factual judgment of the overall demise of the design profession. GAI has not diminished the fundamental value of design; on the contrary, it compels design to return to its disciplinary essence of "Problem Framing—Value Creation—Experience Verification."

Based on these findings, this paper proposes recommendations for design education reform and the transformation of job-hunting strategies for design students. These include curriculum restructuring, AI collaboration training, the upgrading of portfolio expression logic, and the strengthening of ethical and copyright awareness. The aim is to provide theoretical references and practical pathways for design talent cultivation and career development in the AI era.