Will AI Make Everything Look the Same? (And Why Design Systems Are at the Center of It)

There’s a weird trend happening right now.

On one side, AI is getting scary good at building apps, designing interfaces, even writing entire products based on a few prompts.
On the other side, humans — real, messy, emotional humans — are screaming:
"We want vibes! We want authenticity! We want things that feel alive!"

And somehow, we’re trying to mash those two worlds together without blowing everything up.

Right Now: AI Designs Like a Good Student (But a Boring One)

Play with any AI design generator today and you’ll notice something:
They’re all... kinda the same.

Nice rounded buttons.
Soft drop shadows.
Minimalist layouts.
Color palettes that look like they were stolen from an indie tech startup circa 2023.

It’s not bad. It’s just... safe. Predictable. Templated.
It’s a vibe, sure. But it’s not your vibe.

And here’s the kicker — they’re all pulling from the same open-source DNA.
Tailwind. Shadcn. Material UI. Ant Design.
Which makes sense, because that’s what's available.
But it also means we’re training AI on the same food supply.

Same food = same taste.

If Everything Tastes the Same, Do We Still Enjoy It?

Imagine this:
You walk into a restaurant.
Italian? Thai? Japanese? French?
Nope.
Everything — every dish, every style, every flavor — has blended into a single Global Default™.

Would you even bother going out to eat anymore?

The same danger is creeping into design.

If every app, every website, every product feels identical,
will users even care which one they use?
Will brands still be able to carve out identities?
Or are we heading toward one beige, beautiful, hyper-optimized future where everything looks like a Notion clone?

East vs West: Proof That Taste Still Matters

Look at design globally today:

• In China and Japan, you see dense, information-rich, brutalist-inspired layouts. Every pixel is fighting for attention. It’s chaos, but it’s their chaos.
• In the US and Europe, you get clean, spacious, minimalist vibes. Fewer elements. More breathing room. Feels "modern," but also curated.

These aren’t just aesthetic choices.
They’re cultural reflections.
They’re how people live, think, feel.

You can’t slap a Silicon Valley "clean" layout onto a Chinese e-commerce app and call it a day.
It just doesn’t vibe the same way.

The Role of Design Systems: Protectors of Flavor

And THIS is where Design Systems come in.

Design Systems aren’t just about components and tokens.
They’re the guardians of a product’s soul.

If AI is the cook,
the Design System is the family recipe that says:
"No, our dumplings must have garlic. Our stew must simmer for 3 hours. Our cake must be topped with gold leaf, because grandma said so."

Without strong, opinionated systems, AI will default to whatever is easy, available, and trend-approved.

With strong systems?
AI can be guided to create authentic, vibe-rich, culturally respectful designs — at scale.

So... One Unified Design Future or Millions of Flavors?

Honestly? Probably both.

• Big companies (hello, global SaaS apps) will keep pushing toward one universal, frictionless style.
  Clean. Simple. Global-ready.
• But the magic? It’ll live in the niches.
  In the brands brave enough to say,
  "Nope. We want it loud. We want it weird. We want it unmistakably us."

AI will give us the tools.
Design Systems will give us the rules.
Culture will give us the flavor.

And just maybe —
the future won't be a world of beige apps after all.