The phrase “artificial intelligence” has excited many, especially those in the technology sector. But for those of us in creative fields like digital art and design, AI can be more worrying than exciting.
AI-generated art, videos and images have flooded the internet, raising questions about whether more companies will turn to tools like OpenAI’s Dall-E, Midjourney. Leonardo.aiand more, instead of employing human artists. What’s more, the fact that these AI models are trained on the work of real artists without their consent leaves many feeling like they have no choice but to embrace AI in their work and lives.
In a digital world increasingly dominated by chatbots, agents, and faceless AI functions, it can be easy to feel overwhelmed by all the technology. No doubt, AI will play a huge role in reshaping many industries, including design. We cannot deny this. But at the same time, humanization, empathyand having a person behind the wheel has never been more important.
Instead of seeing AI as something that replaces human creativity, at MacPaw we saw an opportunity to explore how we could make AI feel more personal and accessible – all the while keeping humans at the center of the experience. That led us to rethink how AI assistants are created.
The concept of a new AI assistant
Traditional AI assistants like Claude and ChatGPT typically take the form of a conversational text box or web page on the screen, as this is how users interact with their devices. It is comfortable and familiar. While extremely useful for a variety of tasks, interacting with these AI assistants can feel transactional and technical.
Using the same text box format across all AI wizards provides consistency. But we wanted to create a new, more personal and differentiated experience for users. But which format would be best? Even if we change the look of an AI tool, its use should still be useful and intuitive.
As humans, it is easier to understand and connect with things that look like us. This is why we are often drawn to things like animals and characters: they have traits that we recognize within ourselves. Understanding this, we saw an opportunity to combine these values: utility and personality.
The importance of character in design
Get into Eney– A new proactive AI assistant. MacPaw didn’t want Eney to be just another AI tool for users, but one that would proactively help within the user’s workflow. The vision was to help users connect with Eney more easily than other AI tools, so we decided to create a character that users could interact with. We wanted Eney to be expressive, friendly and emotional like humans do. But we needed to strike an important balance: making Eney cheerful without it being too silly or childish.
This is where animation and human intervention played a fundamental role. While it was challenging, it was crucial because an overloaded character UI could turn off users and make Eney difficult to navigate. To avoid this, the design team opted to create a select set of emotions and gestures for Eney to express, ensuring that his expressions conveyed useful information. For example, when working on a task, Eney’s figure looks like a loading icon. To do this, we worked to reduce Eney’s on-screen movement to ensure it’s not distracting or excessive.
After exploring a few different shapes and styles for Eney, we settled on a circular shape as it seemed the most accessible. It was simple and helped create the feeling of a calm, floating digital companion, rather than another rigid interface element on the user’s desktop. The minimalist design of Eney’s face also plays an important role in connecting with the user. His eyes are the main ones. emotional connector — a key feature for showing emotion without being cartoonish.
The color choice for Eney was also important. Many AI assistants and companies use blue in their products, such as It is generally associated with intelligence.. Blue is a great color, but we wanted Eney to stand out. We still wanted the color to be warm and inviting while also being a little more visually stimulating, which led us to choose the color pink. Among dozens of other AI products that choose a bluer aesthetic, Eney was designed to capture the user’s attention and stand out in their mind (and on their screen).
Ultimately, we wanted to create a character that was present but did not draw attention; to warm and supportive digital assistant which improves the user’s workflow instead of distracting them. Eney’s character gives personality to otherwise invisible processes.
Artists in the age of AI
While those who are not design professionals may assume that there was not much importance behind the creation of Eney’s character, this could not be further from the truth. Like many other products, all of these elements (style, design, emotion, size, name and more) were chosen intentionally, not by machines but by humans.
Although AI has simplified many design processes, i.e. allowing for faster design, there are still many things it cannot do well. Even when designing Eney, while technology supported the process, human designers controlled every step and decision.
What’s more, while anyone can easily generate something by typing a message into an AI imaging tool, there is true beauty and talent in creating something intentionally through manual design.
As designers, we shouldn’t shy away from the latest tools. Rather, we should learn them and see how they could help us in our creative workflows. Personally, I like to use AI tools like Perplexity and ChatGPT for early stage research purposes. However, we must remember that they are just that: tools. At the end of the day, technologies like AI cannot and should not replace human art. It should help us express our visionsnot replace us completely.
If there is anything to take away from this piece it is that Curiosity helps develop taste over time.And flavor becomes more valuable, not less, in the age of AI.
(yk)
