Smart Design System Retrospective

Back in 2020, I outlined a bold vision for smart design systems — frameworks with features like visual recognition and a conversational assistant trained to deliver design components on demand. At the time, that pushed the limits of what was possible.

Visual recognition GUI Component | IBM Watson 2020

Design System Conversational Assistant NLP | IBM Watson 2020

Today, with multimodal AI, those ideas are just the baseline.

Models like GPT-4V and Gemini 2 can now see design components, understand UI logic, and generate production-ready, theme-aware code — all in context. They can flag inconsistencies, recommend accessibility fixes, and reshape entire systems across brands in minutes, not days.

What once took custom logic and deep engineering now takes a prompt.

This isn’t just automation — it’s acceleration. The barriers between design, code, and collaboration are breaking down. And with that, we unlock more space for creativity, speed, and scale.

Design systems are evolving. They’re becoming adaptive, intelligent — and built to co-create with AI.