Job Check
Commercial and Industrial Designers
Design and develop manufactured products, such as cars, home appliances, and children's toys. Combine artistic talent with research on product use, marketing, and materials to create the most functional and appealing product design.
10 main tasks · most important first
Your main tasks and AI
Importance- 01Prepare sketches of ideas, detailed drawings, illustrations, artwork, or blueprints, using drafting instruments, paints and brushes, or computer-aided design equipment.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
- 02Modify and refine designs, using working models, to conform with customer specifications, production limitations, or changes in design trends.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
- 03Evaluate feasibility of design ideas, based on factors such as appearance, safety, function, serviceability, budget, production costs/methods, and market characteristics.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
- 04Confer with engineering, marketing, production, or sales departments, or with customers, to establish and evaluate design concepts for manufactured products.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
- 05Present designs and reports to customers or design committees for approval and discuss need for modification.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
- 06Research production specifications, costs, production materials, and manufacturing methods and provide cost estimates and itemized production requirements.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
- 07Direct and coordinate the fabrication of models or samples and the drafting of working drawings and specification sheets from sketches.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
- 08Investigate product characteristics such as the product's safety and handling qualities, its market appeal, how efficiently it can be produced, and ways of distributing, using, and maintaining it.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
- 09Develop manufacturing procedures and monitor the manufacture of their designs in a factory to improve operations and product quality.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
- 10Participate in new product planning or market research, including studying the potential need for new products.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
Tasks from O*NET® 31.0 (US Department of Labor, CC BY 4.0, changed by us), most important first. “Already use” comes from Anthropic’s data on real work chats with Claude; “could speed up” from task ratings made with GPT-4 in 2023.
Four studies, side by side
None is a forecast of job loss4%of this job’s work time goes to tasks that people already do with Claude at work, counting tasks where AI only helps as half (2026).Anthropic, 2026
47%of this job’s tasks an AI model could do in half the time, counting tasks that need extra tools as half (rated in 2023).Eloundou, Manning, Mishkin and Rock, 2023
Above 70% of jobsin how often and how well AI helped with this job’s work in Microsoft Copilot chats (2024 data).Microsoft Research (Tomlinson et al.), 2025
Above 34% of jobsin how much of this job’s physical work robots have been shown to do, from factories to homes (2026).Anthropic, 2026
Your human edge
AI touches every main task of this job in some way. Your edge is judgment: knowing when AI’s work is right, and checking it before it counts.
AI tools for your work
Official connectors that let an AI assistant work inside the apps designers use. Each is made by the app’s own maker.