This post reflects on the future of design* —and the role of designers* —in a world where AI is poised to reshape how society works.

Reducing contemporary digital economy to its essential dynamics (grossly oversimplifying), we have two interlinked yet distinct foundational forces:

Commodification of user attention. Social media platforms are designed to capture and retain user attention, while simultaneously extracting endless feeds of behavioral data to be packaged and sold—primarily for targeted advertising. **Frictionless ubiquitous monetization. **Advertisers—whether brands, retailers, or individual creators—sell both tangible products and intangible services, relying on real-time streams of behavioral insights.

From the gamification (gamblification?) of attention, to the hyper-personalization of the offer (and flows) optimized for maximum conversion, the language is set. Service platforms and transactional flows have settled comfortably into codified phases: register, login, browse, compare, like, share, book/order, buy, pay, consume, (ask for) support, return/dismiss, leave/disengage*. Each phase tightly tweaked.

Real time micro-adjustments compete against growth KPIs—engagement cost, value extraction, probabilistic trend models. For this to be possible, everything has to be formally defined, codified, regulated. This has become the** inherent responsibility—and by-product—of the dominant technology platforms governing each phase**. From this perspective, the Design System is tokenization of one stage of the assembly process—a defining feature of an industrialization process.