# Exploring Challenges and Opportunities to Support Designers in Learning to Co-create with AI-based Manufacturing Design Tools

## TL;DR

This study investigates how engineering designers learn to collaborate with AI-based manufacturing design tools, identifying challenges and opportunities to improve support for effective co-creation.

## Contribution

It provides empirical insights into designers' learning processes and challenges when working with AI co-creative tools in manufacturing design.

## Key findings

- Designers struggle to understand and adjust AI outputs.
- Communication of design goals with AI systems is challenging.
- Several design opportunities to enhance designer-AI collaboration.

## Abstract

AI-based design tools are proliferating in professional software to assist engineering and industrial designers in complex manufacturing and design tasks. These tools take on more agentic roles than traditional computer-aided design tools and are often portrayed as "co-creators." Yet, working effectively with such systems requires different skills than working with complex CAD tools alone. To date, we know little about how engineering designers learn to work with AI-based design tools. In this study, we observed trained designers as they learned to work with two AI-based tools on a realistic design task. We find that designers face many challenges in learning to effectively co-create with current systems, including challenges in understanding and adjusting AI outputs and in communicating their design goals. Based on our findings, we highlight several design opportunities to better support designer-AI co-creation.